Introduction - Nodezilla Grid as a distributed storage for .torrent files

The Nodezilla Azureus plugin aims at providing an alternative way for distributing/finding .torrent files (and only them). Built on top of the Nodezilla Grid Storage system, the plugin enables you to search easily for .torrent files stored in the NZ grid, and to retrieve them. The download of the actual files is then handled as usual by the BitTorrent? client (Azureus in this case). This is an alternative to the WWW indexing sites currently in use to advertise torrents.

NB: The goal is not to replace trackers, or compete with the DHT system currently in place, but to provide a living space to store .torrent files. This way, we can hope to have live database of active torrents available in a persistent way. The cleaning of unactive torrents would be handled by Nodezilla's Grid cleaning process.

Prerequisites

For proper operations, you need the following:

• A properly configured/running Nodezilla Network Agent >= 0.4.12 (download here)
• Azureus >=2.3.0.6 (download here)
• The Nodezilla Azureus Plugin (download here)

Testing your Nodezilla setup

Before going further, be sure your Nodezilla setup is working properly. An easy way to check that, is in the statistics tab of the Nodezilla Java Client (not the Azureus plugin), and see if the status is either:

• Ready;
• or Ready but ....

Additionaly, perform the following checks:

• A simple search query like 'a' returns results;
• The nodes neighborhood (displayed in your Statistics Tab) is > 0.

If all this is OK then proceed with the Azureus Plugin installation.

Installation

After you have downloaded the Nodezilla Plugin for Azureus (see Prerequisites), start Azureus, and choose Installation Wizard in the Plugins menu. Follow the steps outlined below (where nzplugin.jar is the Nodezilla Plugin for Azureus you downloaded):

If you are there, then congratulations the plugin is succesfully installed.

Usage

You should see a new tab in Azureus which looks like this:

It's the same search panel as the standard Java Client, refer to this guide for instructions.

If you double click on a result, the torrent will be added to the My Torrents tab in Azureus along with your other 'regular' torrents.

VERY IMPORTANT: Double check that the directories used by Azureus, and the Nodezilla Network Agent to store files and torrents are writable by BOTH the Nodezilla Network Agent, and Azureus.

How do I contribute to the network

It's automatically handled by the plugin:

• All torrents that you are seeding will be stored into the NZ Grid;
• All files 100% completed through Azureus will be added to the standard Nodezilla Persistent File Sharing service;
• All .torrent files used by Azureus will be added to the standard Nodezilla Persistent File Sharing service.

Notes

• Queries and Torrent files retrieval are anonymous as they are handled through the Nodezilla Grid Network. But downloads, as they are handled through the regular BitTorrent? protocol, are not anonymous
• The downloads are not handled through the Persistant File Sharing builtin Nodezilla