Moved.

New posts for this blog will continue at the Depthstrike Entertainment main blog. The posts that are here will be replicated there.

Kapersky Internet Security 2011, uTorrent and "User Mapped Section Open" errors.

Solution:

1. Go To Setting in KIS 2011
2. Select Application Control & Select Bit Torrent > U Torrent
3. Right Click on U torrent, Then To Application Rules
4. In Exclusion Tab > Tick on "Do Not Monitor Application Activity"

The BNBT core and IPv6

A while back someone had modified a BNBT core tracker to support IPv6 clients. I wasn't really interested in the code back then but the project to attempt to fix the socket model in BNBT is so backburnered right now, I'm interested in getting a hold of that code.

The person that had done the modifications knows how to find me. Please do.

On halfopen limits and user stupidity regarding them.

Far too often, I'm seeing people increasing their halfopen limits in their BitTorrent clients without realizing just what they're doing.

They seem to THINK they're increasing their speeds, but they actually aren't.

The halfopen limit only limits the speed at which you can make outgoing connections. Having it increased is completely useless beyond about the first thirty seconds of starting a new torrent and gets progressively more useless as the torrent continues. If your client is set up and able to accept incoming connections, the benefit window shrinks to under 10 seconds.

Incoming connections aren't affected by halfopen limits.
The total number of connections you can establish in total isn't affected by halfopen limits, only the speed at which they can be established.
Your total speed is NOT affected by any halfopen limits.

Seriously.

My thoughts on the paranoia surrounding uTorrent versions newer than 1.6.1

All you people who think that uTorrent 1.6.1 is "safe" for whatever reason have to realize this:

People have been wiresharking their traffic for WEEKS at a time and have only been able to find proof that all your paranoia is complete and utter bullshit.

Nothing that people have claimed uTorrent does in regards to reporting to anti-p2p groups directly has ANY basis in fact.

And any of you who use BitComet because you think uTorrent spies on you need a MAJOR wake-up call. BitComet is the one that spies on you.

uTorrent DHT Troubleshooting.

There are some people having trouble getting uTorrent's DHT working. There are several things that need to be checked for you to get it working:

1. UDP Traffic needs to be allowed in firewalls for DHT to function.
2. PeerGuardian needs a smarter blocklist selected. Several of the blocklists generated by Bluetack block the DHT bootstrap nodes used by uTorrent.
3. IF DHT has worked in the past, try torrents from OpenOffice or Depthstrike Entertainment's Open Source and Freeware tracker
4. Shut down uTorrent, remove the dht.dat and dht.dat.old files from %appdata%\utorrent and restart uT, then retry.

Some configurations outright block DHT traffic due to the nature of the connection. There's nothing that can be done in these cases.

If you're going to post on the uTorrent forums for further help, post useful information, like a list of the internet security software you have installed, HOW it's not working, and what you've done to troubleshoot.

I don't handle troubleshooting of uT issues here.

New CBTT unstable branch.

Weedy, a developer I know who has done some work on the CBTT core, is working on switching CBTT fully to a libevent-based tracker package.

Because of the incompleteness of libevent on windows, this is currently a linux-only project.

Once he gets the tracker link code working, I'll look into deploying it in my own system. Until then, single tracker operators are free to use it in theirs and test the environment.

uTorrent 1.7.1 and all the claims about MAFIAA involvement.

There have been a lot of claims that uTorrent sends data back to the MAFIAA (RIAA/MPAA).

I have this to say:
1> Wireshark log saying it doesn't. The IP addresses that you are all claiming uTorrent reports to aren't getting any traffic. I don't use any IP blockers or software firewalls, so this log is 100% accurate for packet data.
2> Put up (your wireshark log giving proof of your claims) or shut up.

As for uTorrent leaking data outside of the tracker, it's not. 1.7.1 has added a UDP multicast search for peers on the local subnet.

(update: this all also applies to 1.7.2)

Revised plans for CBTT.

I've decided to drop the boost::asio plan for CBTT, and will use libevent instead, once I figure out the differences and proper porting procedures.

Hopefully, any socket-related issues will be gone after the rewrite (assuming there actually are any currently).

It may actually fix the issues we're having with the tracker links.

Update for GCC 4.x

A fix for GCC 4.x has been made for CBTT this week.

Subversion revision 24 from http://svn.depthstrike.com has the update.

This is a low-priority update.

Planned CBTT Core Update.

I'm looking into switching the CBTT core from using the select() function for socket handling to the boost::asio (Async Input/Output)

Hopefully, any socket issues left over will be eliminated with this switch, and load issues will become nonexistent.

And for those XBTT zealots. Let's see some side by side benchmarks before you go touting that XBTT is better.

µTorrent and DHT.

I've gotten reports of people having trouble connecting to DHT using µTorrent this week.

The steps in the linked guide (the link is the "µTorrent and DHT" text above) should help, as there have been reported problems with the central bootstrap node that is currently defined in the µTorrent code, and the steps have you inject known working DHT nodes into your node list.

TorrentBuild Testing needed.

I've been trying to get TorrentBuild tested, but no one has been reporting bugs.

If people aren't getting bugs, they should report that all is working fine in the forums.

Files released

I have released the source for several of my applications on my subversion server. Most of the VB.Net/C# applications are in the "masstorrent" repository, while the PHP scripts are in "phpscripts".

I hope to eventually be able to update my torrent maker so that the piece hashing is multithreaded.

You can discuss the various applications in the forums.

Torrent Management system updated

I tested the adder system for my torrent management interface last night and it worked properly. Once I implement the database tie-ins to the various sites that don't have them yet, hosted site owners will be able to add torrents to their pages without needing to contact me.

Planning for a torrent editing Apache module

I've been kicking around the idea of rewriting my php torrent editors, which are currently used on the EAD primary server for download-time torrent editing, as a C++ Apache module. The hard part is probably going to be figuring out the proper Apache API tie-ins and possibly getting the module compiled.

The module's editing will be basic at first and will only be used with sites that need the basic editing (announce and announce-list editing). Once I figure out MySQL for C++ and HTTP downloading, I will work on having it support the more advanced features of my current torrent editor scripts such as the http source database tie-ins.

I'm honestly not sure how performance of the system will change if I use an Apache module instead of PHP.

Developing a PHP/MySQL Torrent Management Interface

Over the past few weeks, I have been working on developing a management interface for my hosted sites. So far I've gotten it all active (including having encrypted passwords for the users), but I haven't gotten any tests for adding torrents to the database yet.

Once I get people to test the interface for adding torrents, I will work on an interface for torrent grouping and reorganizing torrents and groups of torrents.

Shortly after that I will start expanding the hosting offerings of the primary tracker cluster.