[ale] Bittorrent question

[Greg Freemyer]

On 3/29/06, attriel <attriel at d20boards.net> wrote:
> > When I have 9 seeds and 200 in the swarm what does that mean?  Is there
> > any way to convert those in the swarm to a seed?
>
> I /think/ that the swarm is people with partials.  when they finish
> they'll be seeds, and in the meantime they still seed but can't any
> service 100% of requests
>
> AFAIR anyway.

That's right.  All swarm members can send out the file pieces they
have.  Once a swarm member has pulled 100% of the file pieces it is
automatically promoted to a seed and does  sending only.

I think the tracker tells the downloading swarm members who to get the
pieces from they are missing.  So the tracker keeps track of which
pieces of the download each swarm member has.  When a swarm member
wants to download a new piece it asks the tracker who to get it from. 
The tracker can tell it to get it from another swarm member with a
partial download or from a seed.

BTW: BitTorrent etiquete is to stay connected to the swarm after you
get promoted to a seed long enough for you to upload 2 full copies of
the torrent.  The BitTorrent client should show you your
upload/download percentage.  When you hit 200% you should feel free to
drop off with no guilt about abusing the rest of the swarm.

Greg
--
Greg Freemyer
The Norcross Group
Forensics for the 21st Century