BitTorrent

From Lankyland

What is a Torrent

In this animation, the coloured bars beneath all of the 7 clients in the upper region above represent individual pieces of the file. After the initial pieces transfer from the seed (large system at the bottom), the pieces are individually transferred from client to client. The original seeder only needs to send out one copy of the file for all the clients to receive a copy.

Tracker

The Tracker is generally a centralised website that records who is downloading what Torrents and which part of the Torrent each Client has

Torrent File

The .torrent file has the details about the Torrent and Tracker. It contains:

• The Tracker to use
• The Content Files that make up the Torrent

Content File

This are the files you are sharing via BitTorrent

Terminology

Seed

Any client with the full Content File available is a seed. A Peer can retrieve part of the Content File from any Seed.

Peer

Any client with less than 100% of the Content File is a Peer. A Peer can retrieve part of the Content File from any Seed or other Peer

Swarm

All of the Seeds and Peers together form the Swarm