Similar to the web special remote, git-annex can use BitTorrent as a source for files that are added to the git-annex repository.
It supports both .torrent
files, and magnet:
links. When you run git
annex addurl
with either of these, it will download the contents of the
torrent and add it to the git annex repository.
See using the web as a special remote for usage examples.
git-annex uses aria2 to download torrents.
If git-annex is not built using the haskell torrent library to parse
torrents, it also needs the needs the btshowmetainfo
program, from
either bittornado or the original BitTorrent client.
notes
Currently git-annex only supports downloading content from a torrent; it cannot upload or remove content.
Multi-file torrents are supported; to handle them, git annex addurl
will add a directory containing all the files from the torrent.
It's hard to say if a torrent is healthy enough to let a file be downloaded
from it, and harder to predict if a torrent will stay healthy. So,
git-annex takes a cautious approach and when dropping a file, won't
treat this special remote as one of the required copies. It's probably
a good idea to configure git-annex to fully distrust this remote, by
running git annex untrust bittorrent
This feature is available only from version 5.20141219
.