Azureus Setup and Optimization

Azureus

Azureus is a BitTorrent client that can handle multiple torrents very well and offers a whole host of features that don't come with the original BitTorrent client. It is divided into two main sections; one for torrents you are downloading and one for torrents you are currently seeding. Anybody with 100% of the file who is still uploading is a seed. At the first torrent file being seeded, you will see it has a share ratio of 0.739. This means it is not yet uploaded as much as it have downloaded, anything over 1.000 is a good share ratio as it makes sure that it is not leeching from this torrent and it is spreading around like it has been spread to me. As you can see Azureus gives you all the information a good P2P client would give you, such as the download and upload speeds, how much you've downloaded and how long is left in the transfers. However when you first launch Azureus you get a configuration wizard, so lets take a brief look at it.

Configuring Azureus

Hopefully you have installed Azureus successfully, now load it up.

When Azureus is run for the first time you will be presented with the configuration wizard, click
next to continue.

The first thing you will be asked to do is to provide information on your upload speeds and what you'd like to limit it at. Do not try to cheat the system and limit your upload speed to very little, as it will backfire on you and give you slow downloads and eventually could get you banned from the IPTorrents tracker if you are suspected of leeching. There are two ways you can set your upload restriction here. You can either use the Line drop-list to select a pre-determined restriction, which are the most popular upload speeds. Alternatively, you can manually set the upload speed yourself by changing Line to Custom and using the Max Up Speed (KB/s) drop-list to choose a restriction. You should pick a high enough restriction but for best results you should pick one that is just a small bit less than you overall up speed. This will ensure that you upload pretty fast but that you still have some available upload for other processes and that your downloads will go quicker. Remember that uploading is vitally important for the life of a torrent, and should not be avoided by any means, whatever speed is possible for you to upload at, use it and if everybody does the same, everybody wins.

Mode Needs to Be Advanced in the Options to have access to all settings listed:



Port Settings

The next thing you need to do is decide what port that Azureus is going to use. The BitTorrent default port is 6881 but since many ISP's have began blocking or limiting this port, you are better off changing your port to something else. I had chosen port 56124 for no particular reason, I just thought it up. Think of one yourself and hit the Test button. This will test to see if the port is fully accessible from the Internet. For some people it takes a lot of testing before they find a good port for various reasons including firewall usage and the use of routers. In the case of routers you will need to use port forwarding for whatever port you decide to use with Azureus [www.portforward.com]. In the case of a firewall, make sure Azureus and javaw.exe have full unlimited access to the Internet. Picking a port that your ISP is currently blocking, will result in slower downloads and possibly no torrent activity at all so it is very important you get a port that is fully accessible from the Internet. When you are done click next. You will then be asked to choose a location where torrent files that you have clicked on will be saved. So do that and then you are ready to download.

Beginning Configure of Azureus

OK this guide to setting up Azureus is for newcomers so you can get going ASAP.You will find there are little things you can tweak to help you get the best performance, but for now the basic settings.

OK once you have downloaded Azureus and the latest Java and installed it, the first thing you will be greeted with is the Configuration Wizard, Select your UPLOAD speed, click next, then enter a port in the range of 49152 - 65535 (6881 set as default.) YOU MUST CHANGE THIS. then click TEST, this will let you know if you have any NAT errors. If it fails the test you will need to forward your port. Checkout www.portforward.com for a complete guide. If you pass the test click next and then finish.

You are now set with the basic settings to run Azureus, but there are a few thing to check and uncheck to tweak it a little more AND to follow the rules.

If I don't mention a box, then you can assume that it is blank and can be left that way.

On the main menu click Tools>Options.

Connection

Make sure the port you entered during the wizard is displayed in the Incoming TCP Listen Port box.



Networks:
Check the box for Public IP Network (Not Anonymous)
Uncheck the other 2 boxes

Peer Sources:
Check the Box, from a tracker
Uncheck the other 3 boxes.

Advanced Network Settings:
Max simultaneous outbound connection attempts is set at 8 by default, (Windows XP SP2, imposes a system wide limit of 10 simultaneous connect attempts) there is a patch for this, that will increase this number to 50. You will have to google it, download and install - then reboot. You can set the number in the check box to 50. Maximum.

Transmission Unit can be set to 1500 if it isn't already.



Transport Encryption

Check all boxes but the last one and in the Minimum Encryption Level box, select RC4.



Transfers:
Set your global max upload speed to 80% of your total upload speed
IE: 100KB/s total up speed - 20% = 80KB/s.
When you are seeding only, you can set this to unlimited, but while you are downloading set it at the 80% figure, otherwise you will choke your connection.
Max download can be set to 0 (Unlimited)

Default max upload slots per torrent, keep this as the default for your connection speed, to high a number will not be good, say you are upping at 80KB/s and you set this figure to ten, that means each slot will be geting just 8KB/s, now if you have 3 torrents running, you can divide that 8 by 3 and you see you are upping more or less nothing to each person you are connected to and very soon you will get snubbed by their client for not uploading enough. The faster you upload to a person, the faster you will download, so if your default is set at 2, leave it.

Max number of connections per torrent:
I suggest you start off at around 40. You can tweak this a little as it varies a lot depending what connection you have, but again, don't go crazy and set it to high. You don't want to flood your connection, with connection requests.

Global you can leave as it is.



Files:
Just where you set your directories for saving the downloads in.

Removal rules:
You can leave, nothing to see in here, its set by Azureus.

Performance Options:
Take my advice DO NOT TOUCH.

Interface:
Lets you play with colors etc..

IP Filters:
Shows a list of all the IP's that will be blocked by the safepeer plug-in.
Statistics:
Lets you save all your stats to an XML file



Plug-ins:
Autospeed: turn it OFF, it's a waste of time. If you need to, you can adjust upload manually.

AZCVSupdater:
Unless you want to run the daily releases (beta versions), turn off auto download and uncheck auto restart, Auto backup, switch that on. That has saved me many a time when the PC has gone down. It saves a backup of whatever your downloading or uploading at the time.

Tracker Web:
Uncheck/Disable



IRC:
Set IRC info if you so wish

Plug-in Update:
Check this box/Enabled

UPnP:
If you don't have a UPnP router disable this, otherwise leave as is.

Distributed Database:
Uncheck all/ Disable everything

Distributed Tracker:
Uncheck/ Disable

Tracker:
Client, leave everything as set by default.



Server: uncheck/ disable all boxes



Sharing:
Protocol for shared resources =HTTP
Private torrent - only accept peers from the tracker Check/Enable
Uncheck/Disable the other 2 boxes.



Queue:
Max number of simultaneous downloads (do not set to unlimited, the more you have downloading the less bandwidth goes to each torrent, this is the biggest mistake a lot of people make, they think they can run 10 or 12 at a time, and they wonder why they don't get good speeds and it takes forever to get what they want, Keep it small, my connection is 1.5MB down 998Kb up and I only download 1 torrent (yes 1) at a time. The result is you will get faster speeds thus finishing the download quicker. Then you can then move on to the next one. Torrents will be queued so as 1 finishes, another will begin. But it's up to you.



Seeding:
Disconnect seeds when seeding, Check/Enable. You don't need to be connected to other seeds.



Super seeding:
Use this only if you are uploading a torrent, (IE: You created the torrent and uploaded it IPT). This way everybody who connects to you gets a different piece of the file. This speeds up the process. If you dont use this then everybody gets the same piece of file and you will be the only seeder for hours.

Auto starting and First priority:
You can play with these if you want. It just sets some rules as to what you want to seed first etc.

Ignore rules:
Ignore torrents that have a ratio of 0.0:1. This is IMPORTANT, if you want to SEED TILL YOU BLEED, leave the rest at zero and it will keep seeding until you decide to stop it. If you want to give back twice as much set to 2:1, and 3:1 you guessed it, it's up to you.



Main Interface
OK lets have a look at the main interface, I will just go through some of the menu options, mainly the ones that you are most likely to use most often.

File Menu:
Create Torrent: this opens the create torrent menu, here is where you create your own torrents for uploading to the tracker if you are able to.

Open:
torrent file - does just that, opens a torrent you have saved on your Hard Drive.
torrent file - (no default save), opens a torrent file, but does not automatically save it in your torrent directory.
torrent file (for seeding), if you have a complete download, that you wish to seed, point it at the complete download location, it will then be opened in the download window, and it will be checked to make sure its complete, if it is, it will transfer down to the upload window and begin to seed.

Transfers:
Allows you to stop, start or pause your downloads.

Tools:
Blocked IP list Shows you all the IP's that safepeer has blocked, you can also access this by also double clicking on the safepeer plug-in window, at the bottom of the screen,it will look something like this:
{June 11, 09:37}IPs 87,550 - 67/0/0

Statistics:
The only tab I tend to look at here is the transfers tab. It shows you your current up/down speed, your current session totals and share ratio, and your total combined totals since it was installed. A nice way to see just how much you have transferred.

Plug-ins:
As we have most of these disabled, there's not much to see here,
The IRC will open the IRC window and connect if it has been setup to do so.
Any plug-in you install later will be accessible via this menu.
To get more plug-ins, use the installation wizard. Get plug-ins list direct from sourceforge and if you have a plug-in that you want to get rid of, just use the uninstall wizard.

Main window, My Torrents tab

Double click on any torrent, and the general info tab is opened, here you will see all the details of the torrent, The Details Tab shows you who you are connected to and how much of the download they have. You can configure what info is displayed by right clicking anywhere in the window, and selecting "Column Setup". What you want to see is entirely up to you.
Swarm: A graphical representation of your connections
Pieces: Shows the pieces of the file that you are currently downloading, when seeding this tab will be empty.
Files: Here is a list of all the files in the release. If you right click any of them, you can select the download priority or choose not to download a particular file in that release.

If you right click any torrent, you will bring up a menu.
Show Details: Which will open the general info tab for that torrent.
Show Download Bar: This one opens a small d/l bar that stays on top of windows, so if you minimize AZ, and your surfing the net, you can keep on eye on your torrents.
Open and Show in Explorer: Does what it says.
Advanced: The two main parts of this menu are the Set Down and UP Speed options. Very handy if you need to seed more than you download, just select what speed you require for each individual torrent,
You can also change the global speed setting for AZ by right clicking the down/up speed windows, in the bottom right corner of the window

Also checkout the Azureus wiki - main menu Help>Wiki FAQ

Well this should give you plenty to get you going. Obviously you can spend a lot of time tweaking settings, but for a new user this should be fine. The more you use it, the more you find to play with!