Outdated Package in etch

The rtorrent package in the Debian etch arm repository is version 0.6.4.
Version 0.6.4 was released way back in June 2005.

The rtorrent Changelog suggests that there have been many worthwhile changes since 0.6.4.
Its a good idea to run a more up to date version than 0.6.4. on the slug.

The latest releases of rtorrent are,

• 0.8.2 Stable
• 0.8.4 Unstable.

The Build Environment

The deb packages mentioned below have been built in an etch build environment using QEMU.
The QEMU environment had CXXFLAGS set in system env as is recommended here

The rtorrent package and its dependencies were built in the QEMU environment using Debian package sources.
etch dev packages were installed with apt-get where possible, and lenny packages built where necessary.
All the packages were built as they come from the Debian Sources. No patches, no changes.

The Packages

The libtorrent and rtorrent package sources come from Jose Luis Rivas's(approve sites) debian repository. Thanks Jose.
The Stable and Unstable rtorrent package versions in this page are dependent on the rtorrent releases Jose has been able to package for debian.

The packages are,

• Dependencies
  • libssh2-1_0.18-1
  • libcurl3_7.17.1-1
  • libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1
• Stable
  • libtorrent10_0.12.2-1
  • rtorrent_0.8.2-1
• Unstable
  • libtorrent11_0.12.4-1(approve sites)
  • rtorrent_0.8.4-1(approve sites)

The libssh2-1, libcurl3 and libxmlrpc-c3 packages come from lenny sources. They install fine on an etch slug without requiring any further lenny package dependencies.

The rtorrent package has been built with XMLRPC enabled.

Install Commands

The commands below will install rtorrent on a NSLU2 running Debian etch.
The install procedure has been tested on a slug that already had rtorrent installed and a slug that had a clean OS install.
Run the commands as root.

0.8.2 - Stable

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------
apt-get update
apt-get install libwww-ssl0 wget

wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libssh2-1_0.18-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libcurl3_7.17.1-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libtorrent10_0.12.2-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/rtorrent_0.8.2-1_arm.deb

dpkg -i libssh2-1_0.18-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i libcurl3_7.17.1-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i libtorrent10_0.12.2-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i rtorrent_0.8.2-1_arm.deb

rm libssh2-1_0.18-1_arm.deb
rm libcurl3_7.17.1-1_arm.deb
rm libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
rm libtorrent10_0.12.2-1_arm.deb
rm rtorrent_0.8.2-1_arm.deb

apt-get clean
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------

0.8.4 - Unstable

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------
apt-get update
apt-get install libwww-ssl0 wget

wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libssh2-1_0.18-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libcurl3_7.17.1-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libtorrent11_0.12.4-1_arm.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/rtorrent_0.8.4-1_arm.deb

dpkg -i libssh2-1_0.18-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i libcurl3_7.17.1-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i libtorrent11_0.12.4-1_arm.deb
dpkg -i rtorrent_0.8.4-1_arm.deb

rm libssh2-1_0.18-1_arm.deb
rm libcurl3_7.17.1-1_arm.deb
rm libxmlrpc-c3_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
rm libtorrent11_0.12.4-1_arm.deb
rm rtorrent_0.8.4-1_arm.deb

apt-get clean
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Control rtorrent with Perl

If you would like to control rtorrent via XMLPRC with Perl, you can use the XML::RPC module.
The setup instruction for lighttpd can be found here RTorrentXMLRPCGuide.

Install commands for lighttpd and XML::RPC. Run as root.

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------
apt-get update
apt-get install lighttpd

wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libhttp-lite-perl_2.1.6-1_all.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libxml-treepp-perl_0.33-1_all.deb
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libxml-rpc-perl_0.8-1_all.deb

dpkg -i libhttp-lite-perl_2.1.6-1_all.deb
dpkg -i libxml-treepp-perl_0.33-1_all.deb
dpkg -i libxml-rpc-perl_0.8-1_all.deb

rm libhttp-lite-perl_2.1.6-1_all.deb
rm libxml-treepp-perl_0.33-1_all.deb
rm libxml-rpc-perl_0.8-1_all.deb

apt-get clean
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once you have setup /etc/lighttpd/lighttpd.conf, you can test the RPC connection from XML::RPC to rtorrent with the simple Perl script below. Happy hacking !

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------
#!/usr/bin/perl -w
use strict;
use Data::Dumper;
use XML::RPC;

my $xmlrpc = XML::RPC->new('http://localhost/RPC2');
my $result = $xmlrpc->call( 'system.listMethods' );

print Dumper $result;

exit;
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Install the xmlrpc-c general purpose client

If you find XML::RPC too slow, you might want to try the xmlrpc client.
xmlrpc comes as part of libxmlrpc-c3-dev, most of which you don't need unless you are developing libxmlrpc.
The install method below avoids a full libxmlrpc-c3-dev install.

Install commands for xmlrpc. Run as root.

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------
wget http://waka.freehostia.com/nslu2/bin/libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm.deb

mkdir libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm_tmp
dpkg --extract libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm.deb libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm_tmp/
cp libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm_tmp/usr/bin/xmlrpc /usr/bin/xmlrpc

rm -rf libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm_tmp
rm libxmlrpc-c3-dev_1.06.18-1_arm.deb
#-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Another way

see OptwareRtorrentOnDebian

You can also download the latest unstable from the NSLU2 rtorrent google group; The compile is for lenny.