About BitTorrent
BitTorrent is a relatively new protocol that was specifically designed to transfer files. It is
peer-to-peer which allows users to connect to each other to send and receive portions of a file.
The main advantage of using Bittorrent is when the traditional method of downloading (via either
http or ftp) a file gets too slow (because of high demand for the file), you can use Bittorrent
to download a large file and use your peer's bandwidth to download the file. You will also be
helping keep downloads fast by using your bandwidth to upload bits of the file to your peers.
Using BitTorrent
Once you have downloaded a bittorent client (see next paragraph), you will want to download the
.torrent file associated with the file you want to download. This .torrent file (usually
20 k or less) contains all the information it needs to connect to other peers to start downloading
the file. Use the bittorrent client to "open" the .torrent file and watch it start downloading.
We recommend Azureus for Mac users. It is a robust and feature rich client. Grab it from
here.
Working With Firewalls, Nat, Airport
BitTorrent by default uses TCP ports in the range of 6881-6889. The client starts with the lowest
port in the range and sequentially tries higher ports until it can find one to which it can bind.
This means that the first client you open will bind to 6881, the next to 6882, etc.
If you are on an Airport network, open the Airport Admin Utility and go to Port Mapping. Here you
can assign port 6881 to forward to the ip your Airport network assigned to your machine (for
example, 10.0.1.2).
If you have any questions about using bittorrent, feel free to
contact us.
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