Transmission is the default torrent client for Ubuntu systems; it looks nice and works quite well.
Problem arises when installing this on a headless server (with no monitor)… but is there!?
Transmission also has a “headless” mode – perfect for home servers. Install it using
sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon transmission-cli
The aim of running in headless mode is to enable access remotely, which can be done by modifying the configuration files (by default only local machines are allowed access).
First, stop the process as changes to configuration file will not be saved.
sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon stop
Modify the following settings in the file /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
- set rpc-username to desired username for web login
- set rpc-password to desired password. NOTE that this will be updated as a hash of the password and not stored as plain text.
- add remote IP addresses to rpc-whitelist, eg “10.1.1.*” to grant access to matching machines to the remote interface
- more information about configuration files can be found at https://trac.transmissionbt.com/wiki/EditConfigFiles
Restart the service with new configuration file
sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon start
Connect to the web interface using your favourite browser, http://localhost:9091
There is also another alternative to using a web browser, which is transmission-remote-gui. There are apps available for all operating systems, which makes it even more useful for home networks! This client can be installed onto multiple machines, while having all the storage done locally on the headless server.
