Some background – Moving on from an XBOX I purchased an Asrock ION 330 which I wanted to use for XBMC and torrent downloading but didn’t want to lose that set-top-box feel. Being a Linux neophyte the easiest way to do this was of course a full Ubuntu install with torrent application and XBMC auto loading on start-up. Although this worked reasonably well it didn’t quite have the same feel as my XBOX and so I decided to try XBMC Live – this was exactly what I was looking for but lacked the torrent downloading.
My ideal solution would therefore be XBMC Live + Torrent downloading managed via web user interface. After fishing around in the forums I see a few people have had the same idea and various suggestions on how to do it but no clear cut instructions. So after some reading and playing around I managed to get XBMC Live + Transmission working exactly how I wanted. XBMC Live boots quickly with Transmission loading in the background and I can use a web browser anywhere to manage my torrent files.
Just in case anyone else might find it useful I’ve put together a simple guide below.
At time of writing I have tested this using XBMC Live 9.11 Alpha1 and Alpha2
Objective: Install XBMC Live + Transmission torrent application to be managed via WebUI
Install XBMC Live onto your hard drive [I don’t think this part needs any explanation]
Create a directory where you want all of your downloads to go - I used sftp with filezilla to create:
/home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
Press Ctrl + Alt + F2 [This exits XBMC Live into console]
XBMCLive login: xbmc
Password: [Your_XBMC_Password]
Install transmission using the following command
sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon
Now stop the transmission-daemon using the command
sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop
Now edit the settings.json file as follows
sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
Change "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1", to "rpc-whitelist": "*.*.*.*",
Change the username and password for WebUI connection on the following lines to whatever you want
"rpc-password": "password",
"rpc-username": "username",
Now you need to change the download directory to what you created before so edit:
“download-dir”: “\/var\/lib\/transmission-daemon\/downloads”,
to
“download-dir”: “\/home\/xbmc\/Videos\/Downloads”,
Save the file and exit by pressing
CRTL + X and then Y
Now restart transmission using
sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start
Due to changing the download directory we need to change some access permissions so enter the following commands
sudo chmod g+rw /home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
sudo chgrp -R debian-transmission /home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
That is pretty much it.
Press Ctrl + Alt + F7 [This returns you from console to XBMC Live]
Finally access your router and make sure that the ports 9091 and 51413 are forwarded to your XBMC Live machine running Transmission.
Just for good measure re-start your XBMC Live system
You should now be able to use any computer inside your network to access Transmission WebUI with the URL:
http://your-xbmclive-system-IP:9091
Or from outside of your network you can use:
http://your-external-ip-address:9091
I hope someone will find this useful.
My ideal solution would therefore be XBMC Live + Torrent downloading managed via web user interface. After fishing around in the forums I see a few people have had the same idea and various suggestions on how to do it but no clear cut instructions. So after some reading and playing around I managed to get XBMC Live + Transmission working exactly how I wanted. XBMC Live boots quickly with Transmission loading in the background and I can use a web browser anywhere to manage my torrent files.
Just in case anyone else might find it useful I’ve put together a simple guide below.
At time of writing I have tested this using XBMC Live 9.11 Alpha1 and Alpha2
Objective: Install XBMC Live + Transmission torrent application to be managed via WebUI
Install XBMC Live onto your hard drive [I don’t think this part needs any explanation]
Create a directory where you want all of your downloads to go - I used sftp with filezilla to create:
/home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
Press Ctrl + Alt + F2 [This exits XBMC Live into console]
XBMCLive login: xbmc
Password: [Your_XBMC_Password]
Install transmission using the following command
sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon
Now stop the transmission-daemon using the command
sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop
Now edit the settings.json file as follows
sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
Change "rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1", to "rpc-whitelist": "*.*.*.*",
Change the username and password for WebUI connection on the following lines to whatever you want
"rpc-password": "password",
"rpc-username": "username",
Now you need to change the download directory to what you created before so edit:
“download-dir”: “\/var\/lib\/transmission-daemon\/downloads”,
to
“download-dir”: “\/home\/xbmc\/Videos\/Downloads”,
Save the file and exit by pressing
CRTL + X and then Y
Now restart transmission using
sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start
Due to changing the download directory we need to change some access permissions so enter the following commands
sudo chmod g+rw /home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
sudo chgrp -R debian-transmission /home/xbmc/Videos/Downloads
That is pretty much it.
Press Ctrl + Alt + F7 [This returns you from console to XBMC Live]
Finally access your router and make sure that the ports 9091 and 51413 are forwarded to your XBMC Live machine running Transmission.
Just for good measure re-start your XBMC Live system
You should now be able to use any computer inside your network to access Transmission WebUI with the URL:
http://your-xbmclive-system-IP:9091
Or from outside of your network you can use:
http://your-external-ip-address:9091
I hope someone will find this useful.
