opentracker
{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2018}}
{{For|the open source versions of BeOS' desktop management tools|OpenTracker}}
{{Lowercase title}}
{{Infobox software
| name = opentracker
| logo = Opentracker logo.svg
| developer = {{URL|https://erdgeist.org/|Dirk Engling}} ("erdgeist")
| programming language = C
| operating_system = Unix-like (Linux, BSD, ...)
| size = ~95 KiB
| genre = BitTorrent tracker
| license = Beerware
| website = {{Official URL}}
}}
Opentracker is a free (licensed as beerware) BitTorrent peer tracker software (a special kind of HTTP or UDP server software) that is designed to be fast and to have a low consumption of system resources.
Features
Several instances of opentracker may be run in a cluster, with all of them synchronizing with each other. Besides the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) opentracker may also be connected to via User Datagram Protocol (UDP), which creates less than half of the tracker traffic HTTP creates.{{cite web
| url=http://xbtt.sourceforge.net/udp_tracker_protocol.html
| title=UDP tracker protocol
| date=March 19, 2006
| publisher=XBT Tracker
| access-date=June 1, 2009
| archive-date=July 27, 2010
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100727015406/http://xbtt.sourceforge.net/udp_tracker_protocol.html
| url-status=live
}} It supports IPv6, gzip compression of full scrapes, and blacklists of torrents. Because there have already been cases of people being accused of copyright violation by the fact that their IP address was listed on a BitTorrent tracker,
{{cite web
| url=http://bmaurer.blogspot.com/2007/02/big-media-dmca-notices-guilty-until.html
| title=Big Media DMCA Notices: Guilty until proven innocent
| first=Ben
| last=Maurer
| date=February 7, 2007
| access-date=June 1, 2009
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090309212046/http://bmaurer.blogspot.com/2007/02/big-media-dmca-notices-guilty-until.html
| archive-date=March 9, 2009
| url-status=dead
| df=mdy-all
}}
opentracker may mix in random IP address numbers{{Cite web|title=Perfect Deniability {{!}} Stories from an Opentracker|url=http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniability/|access-date=2020-08-06|website=opentracker.blog.h3q.com|archive-date=December 26, 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231226212522/http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/02/12/perfect-deniability/|url-status=live}} for the purpose of plausible deniability.
Technology
It runs completely in RAM, accounting for much of its speed advantage over other tracker software. It is written in C and based on the library libowfat that manages network connections.
For some new functionality like the UDP support with IPv6{{cite web
| url=http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/12/28/the-ipv6-situation/
| title=The IPv6 situation
| first=Dirk ("erdgeist")
| last=Engling
| date=December 28, 2007
| access-date=January 8, 2013
| archive-date=February 4, 2013
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130204033601/http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/2007/12/28/the-ipv6-situation/
| url-status=live
}} or the syncing of several instances of BitTorrent tracker software, new extensions to the BitTorrent protocol were made.
Adoption
The world's largest tracker at The Pirate Bay switched from their selfmade software Hypercube to opentracker in the end of 2007.{{cite web
| url=http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-switches-to-opentracker-071208/
| title=The Pirate Bay Now Running on Opentracker
| first=Ernesto
| last=Van Der Sar
| date=December 8, 2007
| publisher=TorrentFreak
| access-date=June 1, 2009
| archive-date=January 31, 2010
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100131084738/http://torrentfreak.com/the-pirate-bay-switches-to-opentracker-071208/
| url-status=live
}}
The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation uses it to distribute their own TV shows.{{cite web
| url=http://nrkbeta.no/2009/03/08/norwegian-broadcasting-corporation-sets-up-its-own-bittorrent-tracker/
| title=Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation sets up its own bittorrent tracker
| author=Eirik Solheim
| date=March 8, 2009
| access-date=January 8, 2013
| archive-date=February 3, 2013
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130203152057/http://nrkbeta.no/2009/03/08/norwegian-broadcasting-corporation-sets-up-its-own-bittorrent-tracker/
| url-status=live
}}
Popular public torrent trackers opentrackr{{cite web
| url=https://opentrackr.org/
| title=OpenTrackr.org - Free to use torrent tracker
| date=February 10, 2019
| access-date=April 21, 2024
| archive-date=April 3, 2024
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240403212048/http://opentrackr.org/
| url-status=live
| url=https://twitter.com/opentrackr/status/1081698792376844289
| title=OpenTrackr on Twitter
| date=February 10, 2019
}} and coppersurfer{{cite web
| url=http://coppersurfer.tk/
| title=Open torrent tracker coppersurfer
| date=February 10, 2019
| access-date=April 21, 2024
| archive-date=October 22, 2020
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201022155941/http://coppersurfer.tk/
| url-status=live
}} are known to use opentracker.
See also
References
{{Reflist}}
Further reading
- {{cite web
| url=https://forum.suprbay.org/showthread.php?tid=58785
| title=Installing opentracker + mrtg install + Tcp stack tweaking debian
| date=February 12, 2010
| author=WaRlOrD
| access-date=January 8, 2013
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120317000138/https://forum.suprbay.org/showthread.php?tid=58785
| archive-date=March 17, 2012
| url-status=dead
| df=mdy-all
}}
External links
- {{Official website}}
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20090322090636/http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/ Stories from an Opentracker] (blog)
- [http://erdgeist.org/gitweb/opentracker/ Git repository]
- [https://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2355.en.html 24c3: Tracker fahrn] – lecture of the software author at the 24th Chaos Communication Congress
{{BitTorrent}}