Welcome to the “rTorrent Handbook”!

This is a comprehensive manual and user guide for the rTorrent bittorrent client, written by and for the community. See also the homepage of the community project and the community wiki.

rTorrent is written in C++ and uses the ncurses library to provide a textual user interface. It can be used in a (SSH) terminal session together with a terminal multiplexer like tmux, providing a very lean bittorrent solution. Using its XMLRPC remote control API, alternative user interfaces can be provided by web clients like ruTorrent, or command line clients like pyrocore and its rtcontrol command.

The Overview chapter offers you a guided tour through this manual, or browse through the table of contents below to find what you’re looking for.

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rtorrent-community/rtorrent-docs/master/docs/_static/img/help.png

To get in contact and share your experiences with other users of rTorrent, join the rtorrent-community on Gitter.

This is also the way to resolve any problems with or questions about your configuration and software installation. In case of trouble, prepare enough information about your machine and configuration beforehand, so that people can actually help you. ESR’s golden oldie How To Ask Questions The Smart Way is still a most valuable resource here.

If you like what is here but are missing something, the best way to fill that hole is to pour what you know into it. Every contribution counts, and instead of lamenting the situation, please go fix it by taking small steps in the right direction. If everyone chimes in, we all profit in the end.

Contributing Guidelines tells you more about how to add your changes to the project.

Contents of This Manual

Indices & Tables