Setting Up Transmission Daemon on Raspberry Pi

Intro

If you're aiming to establish a torrent downloading hub on your Raspberry Pi, the Transmission daemon is a powerful tool to achieve this. This guide walks you through the setup process, enabling you to manage torrents both efficiently and remotely.

Hardware used: Raspberry Pi 3B+ Source

Setup

Update and upgrade:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Install Transmission:

sudo apt install transmission-daemon

Stop the daemon as it starts automatically:

sudo systemctl stop transmission-daemon

Create torrent directories:

sudo mkdir -p /media/HDD/torrent-inprogress
sudo mkdir -p /media/HDD/torrent-complete

Provide user "pi" access to these directories: SOS! This had no effect

sudo chown -R pi:pi /media/HDD/torrent-inprogress
sudo chown -R pi:pi /media/HDD/torrent-complete

Configure transmission

Edit the configuration file:

sudo nano /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json

Modify the following configuration options:

"incomplete-dir": "/media/HDD/torrent-inprogress",
"download-dir":   "/media/HDD/torrent_complete",
"incomplete-dir-enabled": true,
"rpc-password":  "Your_Password",
"rpc-username":  "Your_Username",
"rpc-whitelist": "192.168.*.*",

User permissions

You have two methods for user permissions:

Old way: Add user "pi" to the debian-transmission group:

sudo usermod -a -G debian-transmission pi

Newer way: Add user "debian-transmission" to the "pi" group:

sudo usermod -a -G pi debian-transmission

Restart

Reload all service configuration files:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload

Start the Transmission daemon service:

sudo systemctl start transmission-daemon

By following these steps, you'll successfully set up and configure the Transmission daemon on your Raspberry Pi, transforming it into a capable torrent downloading station. This allows you to effectively manage torrents and control the process remotely. Whether you're conserving bandwidth or looking for a convenient way to download torrents, this guide offers a comprehensive solution.