trackerscraper is a tool for retrieving BitTorrent peer IP addresses from BitTorrent trackers.
It was quickly written by me for a university project.
As such it is very rough around the edges and most certainly not stable.
Read the disclaimer below.
Currently trackerscraper only supports magnet links
(looks like magnet:?xt=...; often found on torrent index sites) and only supports
UDP trackers.
It features some rudimentary logging.
It outputs results and errors as JSON.
The error codes can be seen in src/json.ml.
It can handle escaped magnet links (%3A instead of : for example).
Install using:
$ opam pin add trackerscraper git://github.com/Reperator/trackerscraper.git
opam should automatically install dependencies.
Uninstall using:
$ opam pin remove trackerscraper
Clone the repository and in the root directory run:
$ make
$ make install
You need to have the dependencies installed; one way to do this is:
$ opam install core lwt yojson jbuilder
Uninstall using:
$ make uninstall
trackerscraper only has a command line interface.
Call it by typing trackerscraper into a shell, followed by a magnet link (in quotes) pointing to a torrent.
It will then attempt to fetch as many peer IP addresses as possible within the given constraints.
All optional parameters can be viewed by typing trackerscraper -help:
$ trackerscraper -help
query trackers for provided magnet link
trackerscraper MAGNET-LINK
=== flags ===
[--log logfile] output logging information to logfile (-- for stdout)
[--num-want n] request n peers from a tracker (default: 80; < 255
required)
[--output outfile] output json result to outfile (-- for stdout)
(alias: -o)
[--rescrape n] request new peers n times (default: 0; may return the same
peers)
[--timeout n] wait for responses for n seconds
(alias: -t)
[-pretty] pretty-print json
[-sequential] scrape trackers sequentially instead of in parallel
[-build-info] print info about this build and exit
[-version] print the version of this build and exit
[-help] print this help text and exit
(alias: -?)
This is some (censored) trackerscraper output. The JSON output format is not finalized and will most likely change.
$ trackerscraper --log logfile.txt --num-want 3 -pretty "magnet:?xt=..."
{
"error": null,
"errormsg": null,
"hash": "deadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeef",
"name": "example-torrent",
"peers": [],
"numberTrackers": 1,
"trackers": [
{
"leechers": 123,
"seeders": 456,
"peers": [
{ "ip": "4.3.2.1", "port": 11111 },
{ "ip": "8.7.6.5", "port": 22222 },
{ "ip": "1.2.2.1", "port": 33333 }
],
"numberPeers": 3,
"error": null,
"errormsg": null,
"hostname": "tracker.example.org",
"ip": "1.2.3.4",
"port": 1337
}
]
}
$ cat logfile.txt
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.703198+02:00] parsed magnet link "magnet:?xt=..." with result:
info_hash: deadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeefdeadbeef
name: example-torrent
udp trackers:
tracker.example.org/1.2.3.4:1337
http trackers:
tracker.example.org/1.2.3.4:1337/some/path
peers:
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.706529+02:00] sent connect (16 bytes, tid: beefcace) to 1.2.3.4:1337
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.733152+02:00] received connect (16 bytes, connection_id: beefdeadbeefdead) from 1.2.3.4:1337
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.733209+02:00] sent announce started (98 bytes, cid: beefdeadbeefdead, tid: bedeadef, num_want 3) to 1.2.3.4:1337
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.758171+02:00] received announce response (80 bytes, cid: beefdeadbeefdead, 12 leechers, 809 seeders, 3 peers) from 1.2.3.4:1337
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.758190+02:00] attempting to fetch 821 peers from 1.2.3.4:1337
[2017-10-29 02:20:16.758215+02:00] sent announce stopped (98 bytes, tid feedface) to 1.2.3.4:1337
-
--num-want 200: During testing trackers returned up to 200 peers per announce request (may be due to path MTU). -
-t 2or-t .5: Non-responsive trackers preventtrackerscraperfrom finishing. Reduce timeout to below the default 15s. -
--log --: Enable logging to stdout to see live information. -
--rescrape 10: Request more peers 10 times to get massively more peers than with a single request.
trackerscraper is written in OCaml.
trackerscraper requires OCaml 4.05.0 or newer.
trackerscraper is built using Jbuilder.
trackerscraper uses core, Lwt and
Yojson.
There is none (yet).
trackerscraper -help prints all command line options.
This README serves as documentation for the time being.
Client-side Implementation of the BitTorrent UDP Tracker Protocol.
Magnet link parsing. Magnet_lex is generated by ocamllex.
Magnet may at some point be replaced by a menhir parser.
Utility functions such as hex-encode/decode.
Json backend.
Main module; contains command line interface and setup code.
trackerscraper tries to mask as a Transmission 2.92 client to prevent detection by trackers.
Its default values are similar and it generates its peer_id the same way Transmission does.
After it is done fetching addresses it disconnects from the tracker to prevent its host's IP address
from being listed as a peer; this does not work reliably (on the tracker's side).
trackerscraper uses Lwt to contact multiple trackers in parallel (this behavior can be turned off with -sequential).
trackerscraper is fairly performant; during testing I was able to fetch around 4000 IP addresses from two trackers
within one second with a round-trip time of ~40ms.
There are no tests (yet).
-
Lots of refactoring; currently the code is somewhat chaotic
-
Support for http trackers
-
Support for bencoded .torrent files
-
Revamping the command line interface to allow for more flexibility
-
Revamping the JSON backend
trackerscraper is licensed under the LGPL 3.0. See LICENSE.
I have no idea about the legal aspects of using this tool.
Using it most likely violates the TOS of many torrent sites.
Contacting trackers may add your IP address to the pool of peers.
Other peers may see your IP address and attempt to connect.
IP addresses can be located (assuming no precautions were taken).
Use at your own risk.