Peer Communication

Introduction

The Peer class connects to a BitTorrent peer, performs the protocol handshake, and processes supported messages such as metadata and peer exchange. Although the protocol also supports transferring content pieces, torrentlib is not a full BitTorrent client and does not implement complete file downloads or uploads.

Connecting to a peer

from time import sleep
from torrentlib import Peer, Torrent

torrent = Torrent(info_hash="1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef12345678")
peer_id = "-robots-testing12345"
peer_addr = ("127.0.0.1", 6881)

with Peer(peer_addr, torrent, peer_id) as peer:
    print(peer)
    print(peer.peer_supports_extensions)
    print(peer.peer_extension_ids)

    sleep(2)
    peer.read_all()

    print(len(torrent.peers))
    print(len(torrent.peers6))

To keep long-lived connections open, call send_keep_alive() periodically:

import threading
from time import sleep
from torrentlib import Peer, Torrent
from torrentlib.Peer.PeerCommunicationException import SocketClosedException

def keep_alive_loop(peer: Peer, stop_event: threading.Event, interval: int = 120):
    while not stop_event.is_set():
        sleep(interval)
        try:
            peer.send_keep_alive()
        except SocketClosedException:
            break

torrent = Torrent(info_hash="1234567890abcdef1234567890abcdef12345678")
peer_id = "-robots-testing12345"
peer_addr = ("127.0.0.1", 6881)
stop_event = threading.Event()

try:
    with Peer(peer_addr, torrent, peer_id) as peer:
        thread = threading.Thread(
            target=keep_alive_loop,
            args=(peer, stop_event),
            daemon=True,
        )
        thread.start()
        peer.read_all()
finally:
    stop_event.set()