Running Transmission as a Windows service

I've recently updated my netbook server to a full-blown core i3 system with Windows 8.1. Transmission, the torrent client of my choice, can be very easily installed under windows as a service.

Follow these steps:

1. Download the client and cygrunsrv  (both .zip). from: http://sourceforge.net/projects/transmissiondaemon/files/
2. Extract the transmission executables to a folder (in my case c:\apps\transmission)
3. Extract cygrunsrv to the same folder
4. Starts a command prompt as administrator and go to the transmission directory (cd c:\apps\transmission)
5. Execute cygrunsrv --install TransmissionBT --path c:/Apps/transmission/transmission-daemon.exe -a "--pid-file transmission-daemon.pid --foreground" -e HOME=c:/Apps/transmission/ -e TRANSMISSION_WEB_HOME=c:/Apps/transmission/web --stdout c:/Apps/transmission/log/transmissionbt.log --stderr c:/Apps/transmission/log/transmissionbt.error.log

To make the whole setup beyond awesome, install the chrome plugin .torrent to transmission. Now you can just right click every .torrent or magnet link and just sent it to transmission.

Happy leeching!

Luuk 

Installing the magic 4; Debian, Transmission, SickBeard, and Plex (part 3)

This serie of blog posts will cover the installation of Debian, Transmission, Sickbeard and Plex.

Part 1: Installation of Debian and Transmission
Part 2: Installation of Sickbeard and Plex
Part 3: Configuration

The final step is to configure it all. Transmission was already configured with the settings file, but Sickbeard and Plex need to be configured on their web-portal.

But first we need to determine where to store our library. In our case we'll store it under /var/lib/sickbeard:

$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/sickbeard
$ sudo chmod 666 /var/lib/sickbeard

Now we can setup sickbeard to automatically download the shows we add later. Enabled the Torrent Search in the Search Settings:

Select EZBB in the Search Providers:

 And Scan and process in the Post Processing settings:

Now we're ready to add shows. Just follow the wizard and make sure the root directory is /var/lib/sickbeard.

At last but not least add the TV-shows directory to Plex and let sickbeard connect to plex when a download is finished:

Now install Plex clients on all possible devices you have laying around and starts streaming like a maniac!

Please let me know in the comments if you have encounter any problems or if you need help with the setup.

Cheers,
Luuk

Installing the magic 4; Debian, Transmission, SickBeard, and Plex (part 2)

This serie of blog posts will cover the installation of Debian, Transmission, Sickbeard and Plex.

Part 1: Installation of Debian and Transmission
Part 2: Installation of Sickbeard and Plex
Part 3: Configuration

Once you've installed Debian and Transmission we're ready to install the really exciting stuff: Plex and Sickbeard.

First we start with Sickbeard:

$ sudo apt-get install python
$ sudo apt-get install python-cheetah
$ wget --no-check-certificate -O SickBeard.tar.gz https://github.com/midgetspy/Sick-Beard/tarball/master
$ tar -xzvf SickBeard.tar.gz
$ sudo mv midgetspy-Sick-Beard-xxxxx /opt/sickbeard

To keep sickbeard running all the time, we install supervisor

$ sudo apt-get install supervisor
$ sudo vim /etc/supervisor/conf.d/sickbeard.conf

and add the following to the sickbeard.conf file:

[program:sickbeard]
command=python SickBeard.py
user=<your user name>
stderr_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/sickbeard-err.log
stdout_logfile = /var/log/supervisor/sickbeard-stdout.log
directory=/opt/sickbeard/

now we have to start sickbeard using the supervisorctl:

$ sudo supervisorctl
> reread
> update sickbeard
> quit

validate if everything is working fine by going to http://<serverip>:8081/home/. We should see the following screen:

Next step is to install Plex. The tutorial below is from the official Plex Debian build.

$ sudo apt-get install curl
$ sudo vim /etc/apt/sources.list

and add "deb http://shell.ninthgate.se/packages/debian squeeze main" to the end of the file.

$ sudo curl http://shell.ninthgate.se/packages/shell-ninthgate-se-keyring.key | sudo apt-key add -
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get install plexmediaserver

To update Plex (and the rest of your system) simply run the following 2 commands:

$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo apt-get upgrade

validate if everything is working fine by going to http://<serverip>:32400/web/. We should see the following screen:

Looks like Plex is also working! Super easy!

In the next post we'll configure Sickbeard, Plex and Transmission to fully interact with each other.

Take care!
Luuk

Installing the magic 4; Debian, Transmission, SickBeard, and Plex (part 1)

The next series of posts will be about creating your own fully automated Debian tv-show download-and-watch-everywhere center. I've got it all running on the same server as shown in Battle of the languages.

Part 1: Installation of Debian and Transmission
Part 2: Installation of Sickbeard and Plex
Part 3: Configuration

Download the appropiate netinst from http://www.debian.org/distrib/netinst. In our case we will be downloading the amd64 version (to create this tutorial I use a clean install on VMware). If you use a netbook you probably need the i386 version.
Install Debian with nothing selected except the standard system utilities, we only want the console (but if you want, you can always install the desktop environment).

Next-next-next through the setup and finish the installation till you're at the command prompt.

Now add your user to the super user group

$ su
$ apt-get install sudo
$ adduser <yourusername> sudo
$ exit

and install transmission:

$ sudo apt-get install transmission-daemon
$ sudo apt-get install vim
$ sudo vim /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

change the following settings (please note that this is not security best practice; use your router to prevent access to your machines from outside your lan):

"ratio-limit-enabled": true,
"rpc-authentication-required": false,
"rpc-whitelist-enabled": false,

and add the following 2 settings at the bottom (before the }) to add a watch directory:

"watch-dir": "/var/lib/transmission-daemon/torrents",
"watch-dir-enabled": true

The following step is to create the watch directory and reload the daemon

$ sudo mkdir /var/lib/transmission-daemon/torrents
$ sudo chown debian-transmission:debian-transmission /var/lib/transmission-daemon/torrents
$ sudo /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon reload

Once everything is done you can validate transmission with your browser by going to: http://<serverip>:9091/transmission/web/
to retrieve the ip of your server run: $ sudo ifconfig

Super easy! In the next post we will install sickbeard and plex!

Cheers,
Luuk