BitTorrent terms for newbies

Hi all,

With large number of new users entering the bit torrent community i thought this will be of help to them.

Some bit torrent terms for your reference.

Bit Torrent Client:
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It is a program which utilizes bit torrent protocol for transfer of files between the clients.

Bit Torrent Protocol:
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It is a peer-to-peer protocol designed for effectively transfer large files(eg those that are >100MB in size).

DHT:
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Distributed Hash Table, a table which lists users of a file, through this we need not connect to a tracker to identify the peers, we can connect to a swarm to download the file.

Handshake:
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This is a procedure followed by two clients when they start a connection.

Host 1 wants a file and finds that host 2 has that file then

Host 1 ----------> I want yyy file ----------> Host 2
Host 1 <---------- Ok i will send <---------- Host 2
Host 1 ----------> ok send the file----------> Host 2

then the file transfer will start.

The above procedure is called handshaking.

Hash:
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A unique alphanumeric value which is assigned to a file

lecher:
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A client which does not have the complete file with itself.

Peer:
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Another client in the network

Pieces:
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Bit Torrent protocol was designed to break the file into small pieces and download them from different users to increase the speed of download. So a piece is nothing but a part of a file.

Private Tracker:
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Only registered users of a tracker can use this facility.

Public Tracker:
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Any member of the public can use this tracker for downloading the files.

Seed:
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A client which has a complete copy of the required file and is sharing.

Share Ratio:
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Total pieces uploaded with respect to total pieces downloaded for each torrent. It is best policy to upload as much you download so others will do the same for the file you need.

Swarm:
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A set of clients connected like a group and sharing files among them selfs.

Torrent file:
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Torrent file is nothing but a index file with an extension ".torrent". This file contains the tracker or trackers to which the client have to connect in order to connect to the real source of the file(person having the file)

Tracker:
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Tracker is nothing but a post office, it routes the incoming requests to the clients serving the request. For example i want a file named "Elephant Dreams.avi" and i download a torrent file "elephant dreams.torrent", now my bit torrent client will connect to a tracker which will tell me who are all the persons currently having and sharing that file. Now my client will connect to them to begin the file transfer.


Hope this helps,

dmef

Thank you dmef
this is absolutely needed, please stick it

VERY NICE!!

I'll be directing all my friends to this so they can stop asking me so many questions all the time!!

Thanks mate .I've tried explaining to other old peopls but they are a bit afraid of the terminolgy.

thanks for the help

Very helpful.....knew some terms and learned some new ones. Thanks fof the post..........

thanks man

So...(Newbie MODE:On)...we share files with other members? The files which had downloaded by me, not to be erased in order to share later? Oh, man....its really new for me this TORRENT Age!

Originally Posted by aguskrw1

So...(Newbie MODE:On)...we share files with other members? The files which had downloaded by me, not to be erased in order to share later? Oh, man....its really new for me this TORRENT Age!

Check out this forum, and u gonna like it

Thanks!