RTorrent

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"libTorrent" redirects here; not to be confused with libtorrent.

rTorrent
DeveloperJari Sundell (a.k.a. rakshasa)
Initial release25 January 2005; 20 years ago (2005-01-25)[1]
Stable release
0.16.0 Edit this on Wikidata / 5 September 2025; 41 days ago (5 September 2025)
Repositorygithub.com/rakshasa/rtorrent
Written inC++[2]
Operating systemUnix-like
PlatformIA-32, x86-64
Size1.3 MiB
TypeBitTorrent client
LicenseGPL-2.0-or-later[a]
Websiterakshasa.github.io/rtorrent/

rTorrent is a text-based BitTorrent client written in C++,[3] based on the ncurses and libTorrent (not to be confused with libtorrent) libraries for Unix.

Technical details

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The library differentiates itself from other implementations by transferring data directly between file pages mapped to memory by the mmap() function and the network stack. On high-bandwidth connections, it claims to be able to seed at three times the speed of the official client.[3]

rTorrent packages are available for various Linux distributions and Unix-like systems, and it will compile and run on nearly every POSIX-compliant operating system, such as FreeBSD and macOS.

rTorrent uses the ncurses library and is suitable for use with GNU Screen or Tmux; it uses commands such as Carriage return to load a torrent, after which ^S can be used to start a torrent (where ^ is shorthand for Ctrl key), backspace can be used to automatically start a torrent once it is loaded, making a subsequent issue of ^S unnecessary, ^K for stop, and ^D for pause, or if already paused or stopped, ^D again to delete the torrent.[4] It supports saving of sessions and allows the user to add and remove torrents. It also supports partial downloading of multi-file torrents. In the release of rTorrent-0.7.0 support for BitTorrent protocol encryption was also implemented.[5] PEX, DHT and initial seeding were recently[when?] implemented in rTorrent.

rTorrent can be controlled via XML-RPC over SCGI; support for JSON-RPC was merged upstream in version 0.15.2 and later.[6][7] Benchmarking shows that JSON-RPC delivers a twofold performance improvement and reduces total client CPU usage by about 15%.[8]



See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ GPL-2.0-or-later with OpenSSL exception

References

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  1. ^ "Earliest known code import". GitHub. Archived from the original on 24 February 2021. Retrieved 17 February 2016.
  2. ^ "rTorrent BitTorrent client", rakshasa/rtorrent repo, archived from the original on 18 October 2014, retrieved 14 July 2015 – via GitHub
  3. ^ a b Sundell, Jari, The libTorrent and rTorrent Project, archived from the original on 9 April 2014, retrieved 9 August 2007
  4. ^ RTorrent User Guide, Jari Sundell, archived from the original on 17 February 2014, retrieved 25 November 2009
  5. ^ LibTorrent 0.11.0 and rTorrent 0.7.0 released, Jari Sundell, archived from the original on 2 November 2012, retrieved 13 December 2006
  6. ^ "Add JSON-RPC capability". GitHub. rakshasa/rtorrent and jesec/rtorrent contributors. 20 January 2025. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  7. ^ "rTorrent v0.15.2 release". GitHub. rTorrent contributors. 28 March 2025. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  8. ^ "Release 4.5". Flood. Flood project. 14 March 2021. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
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