ChifTorrent

An implementation of a torrent client in Node.js

Decided to feed my curiosity of a how bittorrent actually works by building a simple Console-UI torrent client in Node Js. Happy Coding.

This tool has the following features:

• Read and parse torrent file
• Scrape udp trackers
• Connect to peers

Installation

You can install the necessary dependecies by following steps bellow:

$ git clone https://github.com/MuhiaKevin/ChifTorrent.git
$ cd ChifTorrent
$ npm install

Running the program

Run the following command to download a torrent file

Example :

$ cd src/
$ node main.js file.torrent

TODO

• Get peers from all trackers that are working
• implement a torrent file parser

Future improvements

These are some of the additional features i plan to reasearch and implement:

• Use magnet links to download files

• Use Distributed Hash tables instead of trackers

• Allow for more than one downloads

• Create a graphical interface

• Support pausing and resuming downloads

• Use WebRTC to create direct connection to peers

Resources

I would have made very little progress without the help of this sources

• http://www.kristenwidman.com/blog/33/how-to-write-a-bittorrent-client-part-1/

• https://allenkim67.github.io/programming/2016/05/04/how-to-make-your-own-bittorrent-client.html

• https://www.morehawes.co.uk/the-bittorrent-protocol

• https://www.seanjoflynn.com/research/bittorrent.html

• https://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0015.html

• https://www.libtorrent.org/udp_tracker_protocol.html