About termtorrent
termtorrent is a terminal torrent client that exists because rtorrent is very good at moving data and very bad at telling you what it is doing without a command reference open.
Why it exists
rtorrent’s interface is a set of commands and views. That is efficient once you know it, and hostile when you use it twice a month. Every other terminal tool in this network follows the same idea: keep the engine people trust, and put a clear interface around the recurring actions. termtorrent applies that to rtorrent.
The result is intentionally small. There is no daemon, no database, no web server and no account. It connects to the socket rtorrent already exposes, asks for the fields it displays, and sends the same XML-RPC calls a script would send.
How it works
- Interface: ncurses, written in Python, with a toolbar, list, dialogs and status line.
- Transport: the SCGI socket exposed by rtorrent, using XML-RPC over a local Unix socket by default.
- Refresh: the torrent list is re-read every two seconds; r forces an update.
- State: none of its own. Bookmarks, history and settings belong to other programs.
- Footprint: 7,138 bytes in the tarball; Python and ncurses are the only runtime needs.
Who makes it
termtorrent is written by Eelke Greven, who also maintains the other terminal tools on this network, including termbrowser. The design principle is the same across both: a familiar interface over a proven engine, in a single readable script.
Contact: computerproblematiek@gmail.com. Bug reports and concrete suggestions are welcome; feature requests that turn the front-end into a platform are usually declined on purpose.
License
MIT. You may use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense and sell copies, provided the copyright notice and permission notice are included. The software is provided without warranty.
rtorrent is a separate program with its own license and is not bundled. Python and ncurses likewise come from your operating system.
Privacy
The program itself has no telemetry, no update check and no network access beyond the rtorrent socket. This website uses a self-hosted, cookie-free analytics script to count page views in aggregate; it does not build profiles and does not share data with third parties. Advertising on the site is house advertising for related projects.
Editorial and corrections
The documentation is written from the program’s own source and README. If a key, path or behaviour here differs from the release you downloaded, the release notes and the source in the tarball take precedence; tell us and the page will be corrected.