Recent rtorrent (>=0.7.5) provides remote command (xmlrpc) access so you don't have to use the ncurses interface.

This is useful when someone in your family is not familiar with SSH command line, but you still would like to use rtorrent on your always-on box. You can use a GUI client to manage torrents download from Windows, Linux or Mac. The GUI client does not need to be running all the time. One such client is ntorrent, written in java.

The example below uses optware rtorrent. Optware rtorrent ipk >= 0.7.9-2 supports xmlrpc.

• Tested successfully on MSS II which is using the cs05q3armel feed
• Unfortunately upto 0.7.9+r1027-1 the xmlrpc feature does not work on unslung or slugosbe
• It has been reported working on debian etch with OptwareRtorrentOnDebian

Install and configuration instructions (with optware rtorrent):

# ipkg update
# ipkg install rtorrent
# ipkg install lighttpd
# (add mod_scgi and config RPC mount point to /opt/etc/lighttpd.conf), below is the diff after I made the change
--- lighttpd.conf.dist  2007-10-30 17:57:18.000000000 +0000
+++ lighttpd.conf       2007-11-01 20:31:39.000000000 +0000
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@
 #                               "mod_expire",
 #                               "mod_secdownload",
 #                               "mod_rrdtool",
+                                "mod_scgi",
                                 "mod_accesslog" )

 ## a static document-root, for virtual-hosting take look at the
@@ -319,3 +320,13 @@
 #include_shell "echo var.a=1"
 ## the above is same as:
 #var.a=1
+
+scgi.server = (
+"/RPC2" => ( 
+    "127.0.0.1" => (
+        "host" => "127.0.0.1",
+        "port" => 5000,
+        "check-local" => "disable"
+        )
+    )
+)

# (add the following line to ~/.rtorrent.rc)
scgi_port = localhost:5000

Now on your client machine,

• download ntorrent distribution
• unpack the distribution
• make sure you have java 1.6 installed
• java -jar ntorrent.jar
• config ntorrent to connect to
  • IP address of your rtorrent machine
  • lighttpd port (default 8081)
  • RPC mount point /RPC2
• have fun.

• http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/wiki/RTorrentXMLRPCGuide
• http://code.google.com/p/ntorrent/

• See also http://synology.nas-central.org/index.php/RTorrent_wTorrent_HowTo