This is a very old post. and out of date as well. Ive followed this in the past and much more recently as well. There are a couple parts that will cause you problems and require a google search or two to figure it out. Also, Deluge crashes all the time on my Pi2. I would recommend a cron job to start it up or try a different downloader. The new Pi2s will handle this soo much better.
Decreasing deluges cache stopped it from crashing for me, now I'm running 300+ torrents on it.
What about qBitTorrent on a Pi2? I've recently switch on it on my Windows Desktop and I'm very satisfied.
I look at their website and I saw that it should be aviable on linux too. Someone had a try?
Useful indeed, however using deluge as this guide describes is somewhat outdated.. Left me more confused than it being helpful. Transmission did the trick for me in the end.
And Transmission really isn't the most lightweight.
rTorrent + ruTorrent on top of nginx or Apache2 is the preferred stack for those running seedboxes.
Same. I use mine with Transdroid and for some reason Deluge just wouldn't mesh with the app. I switched to Transmission and its worked flawlessly ever since.
Yeah. When I was setting mine up I started following this guide. I had problems with deluge and ended up settling on transmission.
In my experience, nothing is better than Transmission when torrenting on linux.
That's because you haven't tried rTorrent + the ruTorrent frontend
how long is your experience?
No Proxy support from what i remember. unless that has changed?
The reason I used deluge was for post-downloading processing scripts (e.g. unzipping) — can you do this with Transmission?
One issue I had with Deluge was that when a torrent stops, and is being moved, all other torrents freeze.
I use Deluge for headless myself. The web interface works great and these extensions that are available for Chrome/etc that you can right click in any brower on the network and it sends the torrent to the deluge server is awesome.
You can use a filebot
ruTorrent also has some post download processing features such as unzipping, and a few others. I believe it's also quite easy to integrate with Filebot
Serious question. why do I need a bittorrent box? Why can't I just use my regular computer?
Power efficiency is on thing. My Pi set up with screen and usb hard drive might use less than 10w, while my desktop setup is using 300-600w depending on what I'm doing. I don't like running my pc 24/7 dl/seeding torrents or doing anything else for that matter, but with my pi I could just set it and forget it.
I used this tutorial to make a torrent box for my friend and he used the pi as a media server as well.
If you are already using your Raspberry Pi as a server, you’ll want to add some torrent capabilities. You can do this with a popular torrent program called Transmission. Usually, Transmission is a standalone program you can use to manage your torrents but in this tutorial you’ll build a Raspberry Pi Torrent Box to be able to manage your torrents on any web browser on your home network.
This is very useful because you can use any computer in your house to download torrents and connect your Raspberry Pi to a Network Attached Storage (NAS) to store your files.
Caveat: The only downside is that the Raspberry Pi’s Ethernet maxes out at 100 Mbps. If you have faster internet, you won’t be able to utilize its full speed while downloading torrents. You can check out Jeff Geerling’s post for information and benchmarks on adding a Gigabit adapter to your Pi to increase Ethernet speeds. I would not suggest downloading over WiFi as it is generally slower than wired Ethernet speeds.
Requirements
- for Raspberry Pi OS
- (you can mount it if your router is equipped with a USB port)
Instructions
1. Install Raspbian OS
First, you must install the Raspbian OS on your Raspberry Pi. Check out the official guide here .
2. Set a static IP address
You’ll want to set a static IP address on your Raspberry Pi to ensure you will always be able to connect to it at the same IP address. To do this, use my guide here .
3. Install Transmission
Connect to your Raspberry Pi over SSH or open a new terminal window and run the following commands to bring your Raspberry Pi up to date:
Limewire () was one of the early Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks out there. It was used mostly to share music files across the Internet. I remember a version of it installed on my high school’s network in a secret folder. Because back in 2003, educators thought it was a good idea to give high schoolers admin privileges on a network!
Limewire was eventually shut down, but not forgotten. Here are a couple great articles:
While Limewire and Napster are gone, their legacy survives today in the form of BitTorrent.
What is BitTorrent? From Wikipedia: “BitTorrent (abbreviated to BT) is a communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P) which is used to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet.” Essentially BitTorrent works by downloading a little bit of a file from everyone in the BitTorrent network who has already downloaded that file. This is different from traditional downloading where you download the entire file from a single server. Now you can download a file from several servers at the same time. This leads to faster downloads. Why faster downloads? The moment you start downloading a torrent file, you start to also share. So the parts you have downloaded, you also begin to upload. This is what good torrenters do.
When I download an .ISO file from Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi Foundation, I select the torrent option. This takes the burden of downloading a file from their servers and onto other users. This decreases the amount of traffic going to and from their servers, saving them money.
Now why am I building a whole Raspberry Pi to do this? When you participate in the BitTorrent network, you expose your IP address to everyone who is connected. What if I don’t want that? What if I’m interested in privacy? That’s where this project comes in.
Today I’m creating a Raspberry Pi Torrentbox that can always be on and will be hidden behind a VPN.
As always, start with a fresh Pi with Raspbian Lite.
Install Deluge
This is a BitTorrent client that will facilitate our sharing of torrents. I like deluged because the program has decent web client, to access through a browser, or you can install a thin client on another computer, and use it there.
To run the web console run:
default password= deluge
navigate to the Pi’s IP address 192.168.1.0:8112 and finish setting it up.
The different tabs are were you will want to tweak what’s left.
Networks Tab: Use Random Ports checked
Downloads Tab: point to folders on external hdd
Other setup stuff
Daemon Tab: Allow remote connections
To setup deluge so you can use remotely from the command line, use the commands below:
You will also want to enable Deluge to run at startup.
Enable for startup:
Next I installed a VPN to encrypt the Torrent traffic and hide my IP Address. I choose Proton VPN as my provider. I like the folks at Proton Technologies a lot, and I trust them not to keep logs, making it tougher for hackers and/or governments to spy on your data. Also, they’re based in Switzerland, a country with strong privacy laws.
For this process to work, you must install it as Root.
First we’ll install the dependencies required by Proton VPN
Now for the Proton VPN Command Line (CLI) client
sudo wget “ -O “protonvpn-cli.sh” && sudo bash protonvpn-cli.sh –install
To run enter the command below and follow the instructions:
Entered info from Proton VPN
Enter OpenVPN username and password
Select ProtonVPN Plan
Use custom DNS Server?
Decrease OpenVPN privileges? [Y/n]: Y
Now that it’s active, run sudo pvpn -p2p to connect to a VPN node that supports Peer-To-Peer (What BitTorrent it) traffic.
To see that it is up and running:
Finally, we’ll disconnect before running some more configuration.
To make Proton-VPN easier to start, stop, and run at startup, we need to set it up as a service in SystemMD. A program that runs several processes in Debian.
Setting up as service in SystemMD
Create the following file:
Reboot and you are good to go! Enjoy the modern world of file sharing. Here are a few links to get you going!
Problems:
Error: I really did not have many problems with this project. The programs used are all very stable, and well supported.
一旦您有您的代理帐户，我们需要将数据插入到洪水。 在ThinClient或WebUI中，导航到首选项 – >代理。 您需要用您的BTGuard代理信息填写对等，Web种子，跟踪和DHT部分，将您的BTGuard用户名和密码放置在相应的socket：
每个部分应设置为Sockv5 W / Auth，将您的BTGuard用户名，密码，主机设置为proxy.btguard.com，端口设置为1025.一旦填写完所有四个部分，单击确定。
配置下载位置
我们的下一步是配置Deluge使用我们的外部硬盘驱动器。 通过沿着与硬盘驱动器安装在指令下如何把树莓派变成了低功耗网络存储设备 ，你准备好了硬盘驱动器设置为开机自动安装。
现在我们需要做的是更改默认位置在Deluge。 导航到首选项 – >下载。 默认情况下，Deluge会将所有内容指向/ home / pi。 那个小SD卡要填满真正的快，但是，所以我们需要改变它。
首先，我们将在/ media / USBHDD1 / share中创建一些新文件夹，这是我们已经在低功耗网络存储设备教程中设置的共享文件夹。 这样我们就可以方便地访问我们的下载种子在网络上，并有自动加载torrent文件的网络访问的监视文件夹。 使用以下命令创建文件夹集（如果您不像以前的教程一样使用相同的Pi设置，请根据您的位置相应地调整路径名）：
sudo mkdir /media/USBHDD1/shares/torrents/downloading
sudo mkdir /media/USBHDD1/shares/torrents/completed
sudo mkdir /media/USBHDD1/shares/torrents/watch
sudo mkdir /media/USBHDD1/shares/torrents/torrent-backups
测试您的连接
现在是时候下载一个足够大的洪流，我们可以看到，如果系统运行顺利。 在我们的测试中，我们抓住了该文件的.torrent 目前Linux Mint的分布 -它在固体1GB重量在，非常适合监控连接速度：
此时，我们已经配置了守护进程，设置ThinClient和/或WebUI，配置了代理，并测试了我们的连接。 一切检查，这意味着我们准备好使用洪水像一个成熟的洪流客户端。 向您最喜爱的追踪器进行访问并加载队列。
配置洪水在启动时运行
在我们离开洪水设置之前，有一个最后的细节要考虑。 我们需要设置Deluge守护进程和WebUI在我们的Raspberry Pi启动时自动运行。 该配置脚本大洪水开发商提供Ubuntu的工作只是罚款Raspbian，因此而不是重新发明轮子，我们将用自己的脚本。 为了节省您剪切和粘贴大块文本的工作，我们在How-To Geek服务器上托管了脚本，因此您可以使用wget命令下载它们。 从终端，输入以下命令：
sudo wget -O /etc/default/deluge-daemon
sudo nano /etc/default/deluge-daemon
这将复制脚本，重命名它并将其放置在相应的目录中，并在nano编辑器中打开它。 第一个脚本是我们将需要编辑的唯一的脚本。 在nano中，编辑脚本的第三行，以包含您在本教程前面部分中设置的用户名（您会记得我们将Deluge用户设置为“pi”，因此我们将在此插入）
如果您没有在其中放置一个您为Deluge守护进程选择的用户名，脚本将不会运行。 编辑完成后，按CTRL + X并保存更改。 当您回到终端时，输入以下命令以使脚本可执行，并更新启动文件以包括它：
sudo chmod 755 /etc/default/deluge-daemon
sudo update-rc.d deluge-daemon defaults
sudo wget -O /etc/init.d/deluge-daemon
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/deluge-daemon
sudo update-rc.d deluge-daemon defaults
在这一点上，我们建议重新启动Raspbian，所以在命令行中关闭“sudo reboot”。 一旦Pi完成重新启动，尝试使用ThinClient和WebUI连接到Deluge守护程序。 这里有两个主要的错误，我们正在寻找。
首先，连接失败意味着初始化脚本不工作。 打开终端/ SSH客户端，并使用我们前面教程中学到的命令手动启动守护程序和WebUI。 检查它现在工作，然后查看初始化脚本指令。
其次，如果您可以打开客户端，但它显示您的现有种子的权限错误（如我们用来测试在指南的前面部分的东西的Linux种子），这表明您的外部USB HDD没有挂载或挂载不正确的。 回顾上安装USB HDD，并在其设置为自动安装上引导部分如何把树莓派变成了低功耗网络存储设备的教程。
增强您的激情体验
添加移动接入 ：考虑下载喜欢的移动应用程序的控制Transdroid Android手机 。 不幸的是，我们没有任何坚实的建议，为iOS用户，因为苹果已采取积极的姿态对应用商店的洪流相关的应用程序（并已禁止任何应用程序，通过提交过程）。
设置共享文件夹拖放 ：虽然我们在本教程前面简单提到这个问题，确保/种子/手表/你创建的文件夹是在网络上访问。 它是真的很方便，能够转储一堆.torrent文件到文件夹，并让自由地加载它们。
Greg Mombert/Digital Trends If you’ve got a lot of movies saved on your computer, or you like to stream from Netflix or Amazon Prime, you probably know that watching on a full sized TV is better than your laptop screen. There are lots of ways to set up media streaming, but one of the easiest and cheapest is the Raspberry Pi, although it requires more work to set up. In the end you’ll have a highly configurable system for streaming your network content or accessing your favorite streaming services.
Choosing the right software
While Kodi is a popular option for DIY media streamers, support has fallen off for Raspberry Pi versions of the software as better hardware allows the Linux-based OpenElec to run better.
Before you get started with installation you’ll want to make sure you have everything else ready to go. In addition to a Rasperry Pi and power cable, you’ll need a Micro SD card, and while extra space is great, it only needs to be 1GB. You’ll also need to connect your Pi to the network, which you can do by attaching a compatible USB Wi-Fi adapter, but we prefer Ethernet for its ease of setup and more stable connection speed. It’s easier to use HDMI because it automatically carries audio with it, but you can also use an analog cable and a 3.5mm output. You don’t need it, but a wired USB keyboard will help the process go smoothly, especially if you have issues with network connectivity.
Make sure to back up any data you have stored on the SD card, as the process of installing OpenElec will wipe the card clean. The process varies a little based on your Operating System, but downloading and unpacking the image is the same.
We’re going to have to secure a copy of the OpenElec image. Very advanced users get some unique levels of control by building their own image, but the process is complicated and requires the user to be at least familiar with a Unix terminal environment. Instead, we can use the official site to download the latest version of OpenElec that’s been configured for Pi already.
If you’re using an older model Raspberry Pi, download the stable Diskimage for the ARM11, if you’re using the new Raspberry Pi 2, use the ARMv7 stable Diskimage download. After you’ve downloaded the .zip file, make sure you put the extracted image into a easily accessible place, like the root of your hard drive.
For the remaining instructions continue to the next page for Windows or the following page for Mac OS X.
Next page: Windows Instructions
Windows
It’s recommended you unplug or remove any other USB or flash storage devices beside your intended card before getting started. The free software Win32 Disk Imager is the preferred method for writing images to SD cards for Raspberry Pi installations. Simply point Disk Imager to the latest version of the image file from the OpenElec website, select the drive letter that corresponds to your SD card, and hit start.
When the program finishes running, eject the device and remove it from your computer.
That’s it!
Insert your newly imaged SD card into the slot on your Raspberry Pi, connect an HDMI cable, then plug in the power cable to boot it up. After 30 seconds or so, you’ll be able to access the device both locally and over the network via SSH. The default username for OpenElec is “root” and the password is “openelec” so you can login initially. Once the system is booted you can easily use any Kodi-connected device to play media, as well as connect USB storage for local playback.
Next page: Mac OS X Instructions
Mac OS X
To identify the proper drive to write to, you’re going to use the Disk Utility application, which can be found in the Applications folder in a sub-folder called Utilities. To quickly open this folder, with Finder as the active program, hold Shift and the function (apple) key, then press U.
In the output, you’ll see a selection of attached drives marked as /dev/diskX/ where X is a number, starting with 0 and increasing by 1 with each drive attached. Write down the number of the SD card’s current drive number, then leave that window open and return to the Disk Utility program.
Upon returning to the terminal, we’re going to use several Unix commands that are very powerful, and if you’re not careful are capable of erasing all of the files on your system, screwing up your SD card, and causing headaches in general.
It’s important to take careful note of the drive number of your SD card, and that you haven’t added or removed any drives since then. You can always double check right before issuing the command by typing the diskutil list command in again.
The first is a command that’s going to reconfigure your partition map. To do that, you’re going to enter the following command into your terminal windows, making sure to replace the X in diskX with your memory card, as listed in diskutil.
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdiskX bs=1024 count=1
Next, type the following command into the terminal, making sure to change /PATH/TO/OPENELEC.img to the path to the image file we extracted from the .zip already, and replacing the X in /dev/diskX with the proper drive number for your SD card. This is going to write the image to the base level of your card, where the Pi can access and boot from it.
That’s it!
Insert your newly imaged SD card into the slot on your Raspberry Pi, connect an HDMI cable, then plug in the power cable to boot it up. After 30 seconds or so, you’ll be able to access the device both locally and over the network via SSH. The default username for OpenElec is “root” and the password is “openelec” so you can login initially. Once the system is booted you can easily use any Kodi-connected device to play media, as well as connect USB storage for local playback.
We love Raspberry Pi for how it’s helping a new generation of children learn to code, how it’s resulted in an explosion of new makers of all ages, and how it’s really easy to turn any TV into a smart TV.
While we always have a few Raspberry Pi computers at hand for making robots and cooking gadgets, or just simply coding a Scratch game, there’s always at least one in the house powering a TV. With the release of the super-powered Raspberry Pi 4, it’s time to fully upgrade our media centre to become a 4K-playing powerhouse.
We asked Wes Archer to take us through setting one up. Grab a Raspberry Pi 4 and a micro-HDMI cable, and let’s get started.
Get the right hardware
Only Raspberry Pi 4 can output at 4K, so it’s important to remember this when deciding on which Raspberry Pi to choose.
Raspberry Pi has been a perfect choice for a home media centre ever since it was released in 2012, due to it being inexpensive and supported by an active community. Now that 4K content is fast becoming the new standard for digital media, the demand for devices that support 4K streaming is growing, and fortunately, Raspberry Pi 4 can handle this with ease! There are three versions of Raspberry Pi 4, differentiated by the amount of RAM they have: 1GB, 2GB, or 4GB. So, which one should you go for? In our tests, all versions worked just fine, so go with the one you can afford.
Raspberry Pi Cases
Flirc Raspberry Pi 4 case
Made of aluminium and designed to be its own heatsink, the Flirc case for Raspberry Pi 4 is a perfect choice and looks great as part of any home media entertainment setup. This will look at home in any home entertainment system.
Official Raspberry Pi 4 case (in black and grey)
The official Raspberry Pi 4 case is always a good choice, especially the black and grey edition as it blends in well within any home entertainment setup. If you’re feeling adventurous, you can also hack the case to hold a small fan for extra cooling.
Aluminium Heatsink Case for Raspberry Pi 4
Another case made of aluminium, this is effectively a giant heatsink that helps keep your Raspberry Pi 4 cool when in use. It has a choice of three colours – black, gold, and gunmetal grey – so is a great option if you want something a little different.
Optional Raspberry Pi add-ons
Maxtor 2TB external USB 3.0 HDD
4K content can be quite large and your storage will run out quickly if you have a large collection. Having an external hard drive connected directly to your Raspberry Pi using the faster USB 3.0 connection will be extremely handy and avoids any streaming lag.
Raspberry Pi Fan SHIM
The extra power Raspberry Pi 4 brings means things can get quite hot, especially when decoding 4K media files, so having a fan can really help keep things cool. Pimoroni’s Fan SHIM is ideal due to its size and noise (no loud buzzing here). There is a Python script available, but it also “just works” with the power supplied by Raspberry Pi’s GPIO pins.
Raspberry Pi TV HAT
If you are feeling adventurous, you can add a Raspberry Pi TV HAT to your 4K media centre to enable the DVR feature in Kodi to watch live TV. You may want to connect your main aerial for the best reception. This will add a perfect finishing touch to your 4K media centre.
Rii i8+ Mini Wireless Keyboard
If your TV does not support HDMI-CEC, allowing you to use your TV remote to control Kodi, then this nifty wireless keyboard is extremely helpful. Plug the USB dongle into your Raspberry Pi, turn on the keyboard, and that’s it. You now have a mini keyboard and mouse to navigate with.
Read more for free…
Looking to read the rest of this article? We don’t blame you. Build the ultimate 4K home theatre PC using a Raspberry Pi 4 and Kodi is this month’s feature article for the brand-new MagPi magazine issue 87, out today.
You can read issue 87 today, for free, right now, by visiting The MagPi website.
You can also purchase issue 87 from the Raspberry Pi Press website with free worldwide delivery, from the Raspberry Pi Store, Cambridge, and from newsagents and supermarkets across the UK.
Introduction: How to Turn Your Raspberry Pi 2 Into a Retro Console
By danielanderson2002 Follow
This is how to you can turn your Raspberry Pi 2 into a pretty powerful retro console. It runs emulation station and can emulate over 20 consoles right up to the n64 era.
Step 1: What You Need
A raspberry pi 2
A micro sd (I recommend at least 8 gb)
Micro sd reader
Micro USB power supply (a Standard phone charger will work fine)
HDMI cable
Keyboard
Usb controller (optional but makes gaming more comfortable)
Ethernet cable (again optional but essential for putting your own games on the device)
Monitor or tv
Step 2: Getting the OS
I got the OS from a website called recalbox, as it was quick and easy to set up and get going.
To download it go to and download ‘recalboxOS-4.0.0-beta1.zip’
This could take a while (it did for me anyway) but be patient.
Once the zip has finished downloading go ahead and plug your SD into your reader, and then your SD reader into your computer.
Step 3: Formatting the SD Card
Before you do anything you need to make sure that the SD has been completely wiped, to do this you can format it using a variety of different programs. For mine I used once it has been formatted you can move on to the next step.
Step 4: Extracting the Zip File
To extract the zip file you need to right click the file that you downloaded earlier.
Click extract all.
And then change the location so it will extract onto your SD card.
Step 5: Plugging It All In
That’s the hard part done so now just stick the SD into your PI.
Plug the HDMI cable, Ethernet cable, controller/keyboard and power supply into the PI.
Turn your monitor or tv on.
Turn your PI on (make sure you do this last as the PI needs to be able to sense everything upon booting up)
Step 6: Adding Games
Once the PI has booted and the program has finished its initial set-up you should be greeted with a controller config tab, go ahead and set up the controller. Then you should have be able to begin playing the preloaded games.
But if you want to put your own games on, you need to make sure that your Ethernet cable is plugged into your PI and its hooked up to the same network as your PC.
Step 7: Adding Games 2
Make sure your PI is on and connected to WiFi.
Open up the network tab on your pc and you should see your PI underneath the name ‘RECALBOX’, double click it.
Then open the ‘roms’ file.
Open the console that you have downloaded the games for (if you haven’t got any you can get them from )
Drag your chosen ROM file/s into the correct folder.
Go over to your PI and grab the controller.
Hit start, games settings, reload games list.
Your game/s should be on your PI and ready to play.
Step 8: Done!
If you have any problems at all with the program or have a question feel free to drop a comment below.
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62 Comments
I have a few questions, first are you able to use a battery and a portable screen and make it portable? second could you use raspberry pi 3? and third, how many games could you put on, and can you do NES gaming? (nice instructable)
first, i want to thanks about the easy and quickly Guide!!
Second, i have few questions:
How i can add more games without to using WIFI connection ?
And I’ll be happy to know about recommended games and when i can find them.
Reply 4 years ago
I use an 8gb micro sd just for the operating system (emulation station) then I use a 16 gb mini 3.0 flash drive just for games..just transfer games to rom folder on flash drive when you plug into computer..but don’t forget to change storage to any external in your settings.
Reply 5 years ago
I’m not sure about adding games without the wifi connection, apparently if you plug in a formatted usb Stick itl create a Roms folder which you can put games in but I haven’t attempted it yet.
As for recommended games I’d suggest
Super ghouls and ghosts
F zero
Zombies ate my neighbours
Super r type
Super Mario world
And battle toads
There are a lot more brilliant ones but these are my favourites.
I am building a little network lab. I want to turn one of my Raspberry Pi 4 into a switch.
I already have a network manufacturer docker image to run on it.
Still, I have only one RJ45 port. How to add more? (at least 3).
I read that it wasn’t possible for older RPi versions. Is it still the case?
4 Answers 4
You can add two Ethernet ports to your raspberry pi with EthernetBerry Dual ETHERBERRY. Check this link out:
You want to add at least 3 different port. So, one another can be a USB Ethernet port which you would connect to your raspberry pi by one of the USB ports.
You can add more USB Ethernet port but you should take note that they will be work on the USB clock. As an example, if the USB port speed is 50MB (400Mbit) at the high situation and if you plug 3 different USB Ethernet port which are transmitting/receiving data over the port, each one can transmitting/receiving data with the speed of 17MB (133Mbit). I mean, the speed would be divided/shared between ports.
I would comment on @m-rostami’s post but I don’t have sufficient reputation yet.
The EtherCAT shields are very expensive, but adding USB->Ethernet adapters will work just fine. Yes, the performance will be very poor, but you probably don’t care about that because you are running this as a learning experiment.
Remember that the Raspberry Pi model 3 and earlier only supports USB-2 and your network performance will be poor anyway because you will have lots of adapters sharing the same USB bus, so there is no point buying more expensive USB3 or GbE adpaters if you’re on a model 3. Just buy the cheapest. I’ve used lots of different versions for various reasons and they all work fine if you install the drivers. That having been said, the older USB2->100 BaseT adapters are getting harder to find now because people have moved over to USB3->GbE.
Adapters that I can recommend as I personally tried them and found them to work well are:
Just remember that they all need power so get a big power supply for your Pi or, better still, use a powered external USB hub. The power supply design in the Pi is very “cost optimised” and doesn’t work well if you load it up with lots of power-hungry peripherals, and USB->Ethernet adapters (especially GbE ones) can draw quite a bit of power. Using a powered external USB hub completely solves the power issues.
I’ve had a Raspberry Pi lying around the house for a few months now. Every once in a while I’ll take it out and tinker around with it. When Resilio released Resilio Sync, I decided to see what kind of options I had for using the program with my Raspberry Pi.
Resilio Sync is awesome. If you don’t know about it, you can read all about it in this cloud server tutorial. In a nutshell, it allows you to sync folders between machines using P2P. No cloud necessary. I’ve been using it for syncing several gigabytes of RAW photos and video across my various machines. There is the occasional scenario however, where I’ve wanted to grab a few files, but my other machine is turned off. To solve this problem, I’m using a Raspberry Pi as a low power, always-on device with Sync installed. Just for kicks, I’m also using Owncloud (open source) to provide me with a web interface for accessing my files from any computer, including my mobile phone. Sound interesting?
If you have a DIY attitude and aren’t afraid of a few terminal commands, then read on to learn about how I did it.
First, you’ll need the following:
Step 1: Setting up Raspbian
I won’t go in to full detail on how to write the images to the SD card. There are plenty of resources available for that. If you are using Windows, check out this link. If you are on a Mac, check out this link.
When that is done, plug the SD card into your RasPi and fire it up. For the initial configuration screen that appears I recommend setting your username and password, expanding the root partition, setting your boot_behavior to start desktop on boot and enabling SSH. Exit the configuration screen and you’ll eventually be presented with the Wheezy desktop.
Step 2: Installing Resilio Sync
Make sure you have an ethernet cable plugged in to your RasPi, and fire up lxterminal (there is a shortcut on the desktop). We’ll need to download the binary for Sync. To do this, change the download directory:
Then download and unpack the binary archive
And finally, run the program:
Now, we want to make sure Sync will run at startup. This requires an extra step. In terminal, change your directory to the config folder:
Create a new folder called “autostart”
Now create a new text document. You can use the leafpad program that comes pre-installed. The contents of the text document need to be as follows:
Save this file in the newly created
/.config/autostart as: syncstart.desktop
Sync is now up and running on your tiny Raspberry Pi. You can access the web GUI by opening a browser and typing in [YOUR IP ADDRESS]:8888/gui. For example: 192.168.1.2:8888/gui. You can find the IP address for your RasPi by opening terminal and typing in: ifconfig
At this point, you can stop right here. If your SD card is big enough, you can set up Sync and have your always-on Sync device….but why stop there? Lets add a thumb drive so that we can have more space.
Step 3: Adding a thumb drive
As mentioned, you have plenty of options for adding hard drive space to your Raspberry Pi. If you want to, you can plug in an external hard drive and go crazy. For this blog post however, I’m just using a micro-sd thumb drive. I love how small it is.
Plug the thumb drive in to the Raspberry Pi. (if you are short on usb ports, I would suggest setting up remote desktop). Open up terminal and type in:
Find your thumb drive. Mine was at the bottom and was called /dev/sda1. Take note of the name. You’ll need it. Format your hard drive by doing the following (replace sda1 with the name of your drive):
If you aren’t interested in Owncloud, then you can stop here and simply set up Sync to point to /media/SYNC. If you are interested in Owncloud, then keep reading.
step 4: Setting up Owncloud
Setting up Owncloud on linux is a mess of various terminal commands. Thankfully, Github user Petrockblog has made it very simple. He created a shell script for installing and updating Owncloud. Simply do the following:
Download the latest setup script:
And execute the script:
…and wait. This will take a while. Grab a coffee. Watch this video. When it is done, you can navigate to [Your IP Address]/owncloud to set everything up. It is very important that you click on “advanced” and set your data folder to /media/SYNC before finishing setup.
Step 5: Combining Resilio Sync and Owncloud
First we need to clear up a few file permissions. Add sync to the www-data group:
Allow sync to write to the thumb drive:
Now open up the Resilio Sync WebUI (YourIpAddress:8888/gui) and add a folder. You’ll want to add: /media/SYNC/USERNAME/files where “username” is the name you selected when setting up Owncloud. Generate a key and you are done. You can now use that key to set up a folder on any computer you want. Any files added to that folder will be synced to your RasPi and be available through the Owncloud web interface. While this is pretty cool, there’s just one more little step to make this much more useful.
Step 6: Set up Owncloud to be accessed from anywhere (including mobile phones)
To access our files from anywhere, we’ll need to first set up a static IP address. If you used the wifi dongle I recommended, you can simply plug it in and it will work. Open terminal and type in:
You’ll need to make a few changes in order to get a static IP address. Below is what I ended up using after a bit of trial and error. Your address, gateway, net mask, SSID, and PSK will need to be changed according to your network. The settings may be different if you used a different wireless adaptor, or if you are only using an ethernet cable.
Finally, you’ll need to forward a port so that owncloud can be accessed from outside networks. I just forwarded port 80 for the IP address of my RasPi. In this example, my IP address when using wifi is 192.168.1.22. The procedure for forwarding ports is different for every router. If I grab my real IP address from a site such as this one, I can now access Owncloud and my Sync files from anywhere by going to [MyRealIpAddress]/owncloud (where the IP address is what you find from the website I linked to). You can also set up Owncloud with an Android or iOS client for mobile access.
Phew. If you made it this far, congrats. I had fun creating my own personal Resilio-powered cloud and I hope you found this walkthrough helpful. There are so many uses for something like Resilio Sync, and I think we’ve only begun to scratch the surface.
If you have found any creative uses for Resilio Sync, then share with us on our forums. We’d love to hear about it.
