Thread: Fixing "Tracker timed out" error on rtorrent

There is a known issue in rtorrent/libtorrent on multiple linux distros where you receive a "Tracker Timed Out" error for any torrent you try to start. This is caused due to curl not being compiled with c-ares enabled.

To fix this, you need to download and compile c-ares, and then recompile curl with the "--enable-ares" option and then recompile libtorrent and rtorrent.

c-ares

Code:

wget http://c-ares.haxx.se/c-ares-1.6.0.tar.gz
tar -zxvf c-ares-1.6.0.tar.gz
cd c-ares-1.6.0
./configure
make
make install

curl

Code:

wget http://curl.haxx.se/download/curl-7.19.5.tar.gz
tar -zxvf curl-7.19.5.tar.gz
cd curl-7.19.5
./configure --enable-ares
make
make install

libtorrent and rtorrent

Code:

wget http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/downloads/libtorrent-0.12.5.tar.gz
wget http://libtorrent.rakshasa.no/downloads/rtorrent-0.8.5.tar.gz

tar -zxvf libtorrent-0.12.5.tar.gz
cd libtorrent-0.12.5.tar.gz
./configure
make
make install

tar -zxvf rtorrent-0.8.5.tar.gz
cd rtorrent-0.8.5
./configure --with-xmlrpc-c
make
make install

Now start up rtorrent and you shouldn't see this error anymore.

very nice tutorial namean! I get that error all the time, it's nice to see someone other people using rtorrent I thought I was the only one who prefered SSH>GUI.

I got one for ya, any idea how to get rtorrent to accept self-signed SSL keys?
IE - tracker announces on https://tracker.l33tsite.net/announce.php
I tried adding the self-signed keys into my own personal CA authority, this works for FF/iceweasel but not for rtorrent :(

let me know if ya got any ideas

Why would you be trying to use your own certificate? You want to accept and use the tracker's cert. I've never tired this before but check these out, RTorrent - ArchWiki or possibly HowTo: rtorrent & SSL certificates - /dev/null