Setting up Transmission through Entware

[RMerlin]

With all the issues with DownloadMaster these days, I decided to write a little guide on how to install Transmission through Entware.

The process is quite similar to the one for Optware, except you'll get a newer version of OpenSSL. I believe this version includes the ASM optimizations that I also use in Asuswrt-Merlin, which should make hashing quite faster.

 

[AndreaS]

With all the issues with DownloadMaster these days, I decided to write a little guide on how to install Transmission through Entware.

The process is quite similar to the one for Optware, except you'll get a newer version of OpenSSL. I believe this version includes the ASM optimizations that I also use in Asuswrt-Merlin, which should make hashing quite faster.

Thanks Merlin for your guide, I used it yesterday as I had no time to play with entware before.
Few suggestions and one question:
- It is not possible to cd to a partition as sda1, or at least it is not possible on my RT-N66u busybox, nor on the linux distribution I use. Instead I had to use the full Path (i.e. /tmp/mnt/optware)
- after setting up the optware tree it is necessary a reboot to mount the /opt directory
- I suggest to have a separate directory (such as /Torrent/Complete) for the downloaded files to avoid the risk to remove the Incomplete and Watch folder when moving files from the router to the computer through a Samba share.

One question: is it advisable, after installing entware to launch an opkg upgrade?

 

[ryzhov_al]

I believe this version includes the ASM optimizations that I also use in Asuswrt-Merlin, which should make hashing quite faster.

Yes, it is. Up to 90% speedup at hash checking.

One question: is it advisable, after installing entware to launch an opkg upgrade?

No, you already installed a newest version of every package. You may run:

opkg update
opkg upgrade

one or two times per month. No need to do that more often.

 

[RMerlin]

- It is not possible to cd to a partition as sda1, or at least it is not possible on my RT-N66u busybox, nor on the linux distribution I use. Instead I had to use the full Path (i.e. /tmp/mnt/optware)

That is perfectly normal. I don't see anything in my guide asking you to do that either.

- after setting up the optware tree it is necessary a reboot to mount the /opt directory

That's correct. I'll specify it in the guide.

- I suggest to have a separate directory (such as /Torrent/Complete) for the downloaded files to avoid the risk to remove the Incomplete and Watch folder when moving files from the router to the computer through a Samba share.

I'm not an expert on Transmission as I don't use it myself. I didn't see any config entry to specify it in the default config, that's why I didn't specify it in my guide. I'll have to read up on the Transmission documentation to figure out the correct config entry for this.

 

[clintb]

I'm not an expert on Transmission as I don't use it myself. I didn't see any config entry to specify it in the default config, that's why I didn't specify it in my guide. I'll have to read up on the Transmission documentation to figure out the correct config entry for this.

No need, that's what the following line does.

"download-dir": "/mnt/sda1/Torrent",

download-dir = completed torrents
watch-dir = look here for .torrent files and start them when seen
incomplete-dir = keep incomplete torrents/data here until complete, then move to download-dir

 

[RMerlin]

No need, that's what the following line does.
download-dir = completed torrents
watch-dir = look here for .torrent files and start them when seen
incomplete-dir = keep incomplete torrents/data here until complete, then move to download-dir

Gotcha. For some reason I thought download-dir was some global dir, and a separate one was needed for completed file. I updated the Wiki.

 

[AndreaS]

That is perfectly normal. I don't see anything in my guide asking you to do that either.
.

What I mean is that commands like mkdir /mnt/sda1/asusware
or touch /mnt/sda1/asusware/.asusrouter, as well as cd /mnt/sda1/Torrent do not work (with an error that in in case of the cd command is "impossible to change directory) and it is not a matter of addressing a different sdxx partition as the mount command shows me only sda1 and no other partition in the format sdxx.

It may be a problem specific to my router (and I'd like to understand why) or a mistake I'm not aware about, but it is strange that the same happens in linux (of course addressing mounted partitions).

 

[RMerlin]

What I mean is that commands like mkdir /mnt/sda1/asusware
or touch /mnt/sda1/asusware/.asusrouter, as well as cd /mnt/sda1/Torrent do not work (with an error that in in case of the cd command is "impossible to change directory) and it is not a matter of addressing a different sdxx partition as the mount command shows me only sda1 and no other partition in the format sdxx.

It may be a problem specific to my router (and I'd like to understand why) or a mistake I'm not aware about, but it is strange that the same happens in linux (of course addressing mounted partitions).

Those commands use absolute paths. If they fail, it means your disk isn't mounted as /mnt/sda1 - you will have to figure out its mount point through "ls /mnt".

If it uses a volume name instead of a device name, then it means it's not formatted as ext2/ext3.

 

[Nerre]

What? My ext2 disk automounts using the label?

/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/optware type ext2 (rw,nodev,noatime)

 

[ryzhov_al]

What? My ext2 disk automounts using the label?

Yes, /tmp/mnt/<LABEL>. rc-code by Asus ©, taken from Tomato

 

[Nerre]

And that makes things so much easier, especially on devices with more than one USB port (or if you use a hub).

When I was trying my router out I had two USB sticks with two partitions each, all four mounted nicely as (/tmp)/mnt/<label> no matter in what order and to what port I connected them.

 

[RMerlin]

Odd. My ext2/ext3 disks always mounted by device name here, only time I had a mount done by the label was when using an NTFS or FAT32 disk. I guess my ext formatted disks never had any label on them.

 

[Nerre]

When formatting under linux I think you are not by default asked for a label (not sure if you can set the label during format, maybe it has to be done when partitioning?). When you format under Windows (FAT/FAT32) you are (as far as I remember) required to set a label.

 

[TeHashX]

Added youtube video about how to set up entware.
Link

 

[AndreaS]

Those commands use absolute paths. If they fail, it means your disk isn't mounted as /mnt/sda1 - you will have to figure out its mount point through "ls /mnt".

If it uses a volume name instead of a device name, then it means it's not formatted as ext2/ext3.

Here's the result of my "mount" command:

admin@RT-N66U:/# mount
rootfs on / type rootfs (rw)
/dev/root on / type squashfs (ro)
proc on /proc type proc (rw)
tmpfs on /tmp type tmpfs (rw)
devfs on /dev type tmpfs (rw,noatime)
sysfs on /sys type sysfs (rw)
devpts on /dev/pts type devpts (rw)
/dev/mtdblock4 on /jffs type jffs2 (rw,noatime)
usbfs on /proc/bus/usb type usbfs (rw)
/dev/sda1 on /tmp/mnt/optware type ext3 (rw,nodev,noatime,data=ordered)
admin@RT-N66U:/#

As you can see my disk is ext3 formatted

and that is the reult of a cd /mnt/sda1/Torrent command:

admin@RT-N66U:/# cd /mnt/sda1/Torrent
-sh: cd: can't cd to /mnt/sda1/Torrent
admin@RT-N66U:/#

While this is the result of an ls -l /tmp/mnt/optware command

admin@RT-N66U:/# ls -l tmp/mnt/optware
drwxrwxrwx 8 admin root 4096 Jan 1 2011 Download2
drwxrwxrwx 6 admin root 4096 Jan 6 04:54 Torrent
drwxr-xr-x 11 admin root 4096 Dec 10 13:18 asusware
drwx------ 2 admin root 16384 Mar 3 2012 lost+found
-rw-rw-rw- 1 admin root 222 Jan 1 2011 port_trigger_list.txt
-rw-rw-rw- 1 admin root 0 Oct 1 01:47 static_dhcp_list.txt
admin@RT-N66U:/#

Of course the Download2 directory is now useless and almost empty.

Now I'm curious to know which is the mechanism that allows to address through the partition's name.

A strange behavior I noticed, but I guess related to the version of transmission and not to it's entware implementation, is that when I tried to rebuild my seed tree, after copying my files to the download dir and the torrents in the torrents dir (I had to change the /asusware/etc/transmission/torrents permissions to do so) and then started transmission, the program did not start to verify the downloads: I had toi force manually the verify process to avoid redownloading everything.

 

[NeutralGold]

Thanks Merlin. I've been wanting to give entware a try. This gave me a reason too. Guide was pretty strait forward and easy to follow. Got everything setup and running.

 

[TeHashX]

Ctrl-O / Enter / Ctrl-X

Sent from my HTC One S using Tapatalk 2

 

[pncu]

nvm got it working.

One other question, even though I did the firewall-start my port is still showing closed.

so for firewall configuration, I put in

"nano -w /jffs/scripts/firewall-start"

then a page like the settings config page comes up so I put in

#!/bin/sh
iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --destination-port 51413 -j ACCEPT
iptables -I INPUT -p udp --destination-port 51413 -j ACCEPT

Do I Ctrl -O Enter then Ctrl X here to save and exit then

chmod a+rx /jffs/scripts/firewall-start

or do i put chmod a+rx /jffs/scripts/firewall-start with it then save and exit then do

/jffs/scripts/firewall-start

 

[pncu]

I think the first way is right and thats the way I did it.

My port is still showing closed.

 

[AndreaS]

I think the first way is right and thats the way I did it.

My port is still showing closed.

Did you try to change the port number? I had no problems but I used a different port (the standard one is used on a Nas directly connected to a DGND 3300 that is connected to my phone line and to a different subnet). It is possible that the firmware reserves the standard port to downloadmaster.

An additional benefit I found using transmission through entware is that now the tranfers from the usb speeded up to 11.5 MB/s (they maxed at 4-6 MB/s before) . This can be due to:

- recent Merlin's optimizations
- reduced CPU load
- increased ram space

Thanks again Merlin!!!