Torrent Creation Guide

[Drunk Vegan]

1. Create a folder for your file(s) and give it an appropriate name. You'll have to leave the folder there for a long time while you're seeding.
2. Compress your files using WinRar (or 7Zip to make the smallest possible files). There's no need to compress video or MP3, etc as they are already highly compressed.
3. Find a tracker to post your .torrent and create an account there. Usually when you make an account it will give you the announce url, if not find it on the site. You'll need this info when making your torrent so copy it.
4. Create the torrent:

a) I suggest using uTorrent, but many other clients and standalone programs such as MakeTorrent can do the same thing.
b) File - Create Torrent - Add directory (that your file or files are in)
c) Paste in the Announce URL.
d) Click Start Seeding (some programs won't have this option. You'll have to open the .torrent to start seeding if that's the case)
e) Click Create and Save As to finish making the torrent and open it for seeding.

5. Seed

Since the files are hosted on your computer, the person(s) you're trying to send the files to will not be able to access them unless you keep your BitTorrent client (in this case, uTorrent) running. Once at least one of your peers has received the file you no longer have to seed it yourself, however its better to seed it yourself regularly for as long as you want it to stay active.

If you wish for your file to be available to the public, instead of just those registered on the tracker you're using, you can upload it (the .torrent file that was created on your computer) to an index site.

[bossmanuk]

Why would you ZIP the files? The point of a torrent is that it can have as many fies as you want in it, that way people can select which files to download.

[Drunk Vegan]

Originally Posted by bossmanuk

Why would you ZIP the files? The point of a torrent is that it can have as many fies as you want in it, that way people can select which files to download.

Not ZIP, rar. Generally split into many small pieces so that if anything is corrupted in transmission or bad data is sent from peers, you'll have to spend the smallest amount of time possible replacing those individual files.

It makes a big difference in total download size for programs and games, but as I said it's pointless for videos and music.

[PopeOfDope]

Bit torrent does hash checks for you and if there is a corrupt piece of data, that individual piece will be downloaded again. Bit torrent makes these pieces for you automatically so you don't need to rar or split the files.

The reason their always rar'ed into smaller pieces is because thats how it is posted on usenet, and from usenet it trickles down onto bit torrent trackers. The usual order is Topsite --> IRC/Usenet --> Other P2P

[Drunk Vegan]

Nice avatar. I haven't slept in a couple days so I actually turned my speakers up because I thought I heard audio from it

Ok, I guess the splitting's not entirely necessary, but the compression is worthwhile; I'll take 250MB over 1GB, I don't care how fast my connection is.

[tave]

i really dont think we need a torrent creation guide

[PSPduh]

Originally Posted by tave

i really dont think we need a torrent creation guide

And why not?
Some people want to learn how to make torrents and they are stumped.
And they are too lazy to use google. <_<

[Mirroar]

Just to kind of prove your point - I did use google, and voilà, stumbled upon this forum post. So, thanks for making this little guide. I'm off to create my first torrent!