RSS Downloading for Your TorrentFlux Seedbox

May 10, 2008 by sharky

With some elite trackers it’s not enough anymore to just have a seedbox if you want to do some serious ratio building. While it will give you an distinct advantage over non-seedbox users, it seems like all the users on some of the über-elite sites have seedboxes now - as in the case with ScT.

Professional seeders (if I may call them that) know where the real uploading action is - and that’s RSS downloading. If you can get into a torrent early enough, you’ll be in the group that’s supplying data to everyone else who comes into the torrent after you. To oversimplify it, time matters: Every second counts in a fresh swarm. You’ll upload more data in the first 30 minutes than you will in the following 6 hours. And after that you may as well just delete the seeding torrent.

RSS downloading works like this: You hook your seedbox into the direct download feed of a private tracker, and it automatically downloads the torrents as they roll in. You won’t even have to visit the website! This guide not only shows how to implement the RSS feature into your TorrentFlux seedbox, but also how to add RSS parsing to filter the results to show only what you want it to.

RSS Downloading in TorrentFlux

Before we begin, it should be noted that this will not work with most ’seedbox w/ TorrentFlux’ hosting. You’ll need to have Administrator privileges on the server in order to set this up. Some services may offer a plan that includes it, but it won’t be cheap. Seedboxhosting is one exception that does offer ‘Admin’ in all their packages by default - thus you’ll have total control over all aspects of TorrentFlux, including RSS.

Already have a seedbox service? You can see if it’s already available to you - just look to the top right corner of the TorrentFlux main window and look for "Admin". If not, you’re SOL - either change services/plans, or, get yourself a VPN or dedibox like the pros. Here’s how RSS Downloading is done:

Setting up RSS Downloading in TorrentFlux

1. Find your RSS Download Link

You’ll need to find the URL of the RSS download link for your private tracker - be sure that it also contains your passkey. Most private sites set this up for you - just click the RSS Feed link and an RSS URL will be generated that contains your passkey:

If possible, use the ‘Direct Download’ RSS link - some trackers offer both, as is the case with ScT. It’s a much cleaner, streamlined RSS feed that’s better suited for this job:

If the RSS feed URL is not generated for you, and the RSS feed opens up instead - just copy the URL from the browser URL window:

Copy the RSS location / link - we’ll be needing this in Step 2.

2. Add Your RSS Feed

Go into your Admin settings in TorrentFlux - click the "Admin" icon in the top right corner. You should now see this:

First thing you need to do is add your RSS link from Step 1. Click on the "rss" menu link near the right side:

It will open up a new page that appears like below. Now, ‘paste’ the RSS feed URL from Step 1 into the text box. Click ‘Update‘ to finish. The feed is now added to TorrentFlux.

The private tracker RSS feed should now be visible in the "RSS Torrents" link back in the TorrentFlux main window. Proceed to Step 3 if you wish to set up RSS filtering and other advanced options:

3. RSS Filtering / Watch Jobs

In "Admin", click the "fluxd" menu link:

A variety of settings need to be modified in Fluxd before the RSS filtering can work. Follow these procedures:

Turn on the Fluxd Service: — At the top, click “Start fluxd”:

Turn on ‘Watch’ — Scroll down to where it says "Watch". Set this to "true". Be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the window, and click "Update Settings".

You also have the ability to set up a ‘Watch Job’ and add a save directory for this (the directory is used as an incoming folder for torrents in the RSS feed). Click on "Configure Watch Jobs", then click "Add Job". You’ll now see a new window - enter a title for a new directory. NOTE: Be sure to change the "User" to your username (when logging in) on the TorrentFlux account. Also make sure there’s a checkmark next to "Check/Create dir". Lastly, click "Add Job" again to finalize the settings.

NOTE: If you get an error message when trying to add the path, you’ll need to specify your default save directory first, and then add a new dir name to the end of it. To find that path, click on the "server" menu and look at the first line where it says, "Transfer Parent Path". Copy that path, and try to add the job with this path - be sure to add a trailing slash ( / ), and then add a new directory name (see the screenshot examples above and below). It’s most likely that the name in the path will contain your login name.

If successful, here’s how the job will appear:

4. Configure your RSS Filters in ‘Rssad’

Next, you’ll need to set up some filters for your RSS feed. This is done so that you’re not downloading every single torrent that comes in from your private tracker. You need to set up some parsing boundaries to what you’ll be accepting as new torrents.

NOTE: This section can be skipped and only serves purpose to fine-tuning the torrents coming in through the RSS feed. If you choose not to use this feature, then all of the new torrents in the RSS feed will be shown in your "RSS Torrents" link in the TorrentFlux main window.

Turn on the Rssad Service: — Go back into the "fluxd" menu, and scroll down to where it says "Rssad". Set this to "True". Scroll down to the bottom and click "Update Settings".

Configure the Filter: — Back under "Rssad", click on "Configure Rssad Filters And Jobs". Read what it says - most of it is self-explanitory; however, we’ll do a follow-up article on filtering RSS jobs. Next, enter a name for your filter and click "Add Filter".

Note - this is just the title (name) of the filter, not an actual filter parameter. In the next window you’ll be able to add parameters to the job. Enter your Filter-Entries, click "add" and be sure to click ‘Save Filter’.

Short Explanation of the filtering: — What you add as a Filter-Entry is what will be extracted from the RSS feed. For example, I have "2008" listed above - this means I’ll be getting all torrents that contain ‘2008′ in them. Additionally, I’ll also be getting RSS entries for "Lost". The asterisk (*) is a wildcard in which all torrents that have "Lost" in them will be coming into my seedbox. I also have "XVID*" - which means I’ll be getting a LOT of torrents in my RSS (however, ‘xvid’ alone is not a very good filter as it’s too vague).

5. Viewing Your RSS Feed

Finally; the pot o’ gold at the end of the rainbow. To view your new parsed RSS feed, go back to the main TorrentFlux window (Home). Click on RSS Torrents:

You should now see a list of torrents that match your filter parameters. Note that these aren’t automatically started / added to the ‘Torrent Transfer’ job - you’ll need to click on the torrent links to add them to the Torrent Download List first.

If you’re having problems whereby the filter isn’t working, be sure that Fluxd is operational. Don’t forget about the "Update Settings" button at the bottom of the window.

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