How to Setup Deluge, A Torrent Seedbox Server

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What is Deluge: Seedbox Server ?

Deluge is a popular multi-platform Bittorrent client. Therefore it is often used to provide torrenting / seedbox functionality on a Linux server. It is Supported by daemon-service, awesome interface, and great a plugin support.

This tutorial assumes that you have basic Linux knowledge on handling Linux shell. Above all you should have your own VPS server with root access. The installation is quite simple and assumes you are running in the root account. If not you may need to add ‘sudo’ to the beginning of commands to get root privileges.

To make the first connection to your VPS, refer my tutorial, “First Connection to your VPS“.

I will show you step-by-step to install, setup and using Deluge Bittorrent client as a seedbox server on Ubuntu 16.04 VPS. Same steps could be used for any other Debian/Ubuntu, but you may have to change the commands slightly, if necessary for RHEL/CentOS.

Install Deluge to your Server

First update system packages by issuing following commands.

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Use following commands to install Deluge daemon and web interface.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:deluge-team/ppa
sudo apt install deluged deluge-webui

Note: If you face ‘add-apt-repository: command not found’? problem; use following command to fix it.

add-apt-repository: command not found'?
sudo apt install software-properties-common

Then create the Deluge user and group:

sudo adduser --system --group deluge

and add user root to the group deluge:

sudo gpasswd -a root deluge

Then you have to create a systemd service file for Deluge using your favorite text editor such as nano:

nano /etc/systemd/system/deluged.service

Add following lines:

[Unit]
Description=Deluge Bittorrent Client Daemon
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple
User=deluge
Group=deluge
UMask=007

ExecStart=/usr/bin/deluged -d

Restart=on-failure

# Configures the time to wait before service is stopped forcefully.
TimeoutStopSec=300

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the editor.

Now start and enable daemon using following commands:

systemctl start deluged
systemctl enable deluged

Next create a systemd service file for web interface:

nano /etc/systemd/system/deluge-web.service

And add following lines:

[Unit]
Description=Deluge Bittorrent Client Web Interface
After=network-online.target

[Service]
Type=simple

User=deluge
Group=deluge
UMask=027

ExecStart=/usr/bin/deluge-web

Restart=on-failure

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the editor.

Now start and enable Deluge-web using following commands:

systemctl start deluge-web
systemctl enable deluge-web
Deluge seedbox server : WebUI

Finally, you can access the WebUI by accessing http://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8112 by your favourite web browser. Note that the default password for the web interface is deluge. It’s better change it when you are first login.

Setup your Deluge Installation

First Connection to Deluge

In the first connection to Deluge web interface by providing default password “deluge“, it’ll ask you to change the default password.

Change password of deluge server WebUI

On pressing “Yes”, you’ll be shown a new interface as follows.

Connection manager

Select the server and click on “Start Daemon”

Start seedbox server

When daemon started successfully, click on “Connect”.

Connect to the seedbox server

And then you’ll be directed to Preferences > Interface. There you can change your deluge password.

Change password of Deluge WebUI

Type a Strong password and press on “Change”. “OK” to the password successfully changed message. Finally “Apply” and “Ok” the changes done to preferences.

Save changes

Changing the Default Download Location of Torrents

Click on Preferences:

Set Preferences of Deluge Server

Go to Downloads section and Add your desired download location to “Download to:” text box. For example, I am specifying /var/www/html/torrents as my download directory.

Changing default torrent download location of deluge server

Finally “Apply” and “Ok” the changes done to preferences.

Note: The directory you are specifying as your download location should have full permission to access by deluge. You can either make Deluge as user/owner of that directory or chmod that directory to 777.

Installing Apache & Do Configuration to Access the Downloaded Torrents

Firstly, log into your server as root user.

Issue following command to install Apache web server to your VPS :

sudo apt-get install apache2

Create the directory “torrents” inside /var/www/html.

mkdir /var/www/html/torrents

Then make www-data as the owner of torrents/ folder.

chown www-data:www-data /var/www/html/torrents

Then chmod torrents/ folder to 777, so that it could be accessed by Deluge.

chmod 777 /var/www/html/torrents

Finally add user www-data to the group deluge and restart apache server.

sudo gpasswd -a www-data deluge
service apache2 restart

Use Deluge to Download Torrents

Go to web interface http://YOUR-SERVER-IP:8112

Click on “Add” button.

Add new torrent
Add by a .torrent file or magnet URL

You can either add a torrent file or add a magnet URL. Hence in this example I am going to add a magnet URL.

Wait till the downloading reaches to 100%.

Download completed, torrent is seeding

Finally you can access the downloaded torrent by visiting http://YOUR-SERVER-IP/torrents/

Ready to stream

Let me know the problems you faced while following this tutorial in comment section. I am happy to help you 🙂

5 Comments
  1. hoan 3 years ago
    Reply

    How can I add folder torrents to window explorer like Disk D or do you know how to back up data from torrents folder to google drive when torrent complete

    • SajunSan 3 years ago
      Reply

      To add folder torrents to windows explorer: You can download the torrent files (including folders) at /var/www/html/torrents
      to your windows machine by using a SFTP client like WinSCP

      To backup data to google drive: easy way is to install a graphical environment to VPS, then by using a browser like firefox in the graphical environment of VPS, you can log into your google drive from VPS and upload your torrent files to drive

      To setup graphical environment: https://serverself.zirahosting.com/setup-lubuntu-tightvnc-and-novnc-for-a-vps/

  2. O 3 years ago
    Reply

    instead of only
    > specifying /var/www/html/torrents as my download directory.

    I prefer to download to a temporary file, then thick / check
    move completed to /var/www/html/torrents

    so only if your torrent 100% downloaded, that will be available to download via apache

    using SSL is preferable to kick some zombies out who can’t talk SSL …
    the only drawback your browser will warn you for a snake oil certificate (self-signed) when accessing https :// yourIP : 8112/

    changing default port is another good thing …
    there are so many random zombie attacking port 80 or some known ports …
    change it into another port will 99% of random attack …

  3. kenny 4 years ago
    Reply

    I’m getting this error assessing the web client via the port 8112

    This site can’t be reached1x9.xx.1×6.60 took too long to respond.
    Search Google for 1×9.xx.1×6.60
    ERR_CONNECTION_TIMED_OUT

    What caused this and how can I fix it?

    • SajunSan 3 years ago
      Reply

      Check whether you have a firewall in your server blocking that port

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