rTorrent on Windows

Since Aug 12 2010 ​Cygwin has a built in ​rTorrent package, so you only need to use the following method for installing ​rTorrent, if you need ​XMLRPC-C support.

• Installing rTorrent on Windows
  • Installing Cygwin
  • Installing libsigc++
  • Installing libTorrent
  • Installing XMLRPC-C (optional)
  • Installing rTorrent
• Using rTorrent on Windows without installing Cygwin
  • Download rTorrent on Windows binaries
    • Direct download (7z archive)
    • BitTorrent download (preferred)
  • Configure rTorrent on Windows
• Screenshots

Installing rTorrent on Windows

To be able to run ​rTorrent on Windows, you are going to need ​Cygwin.

Installing Cygwin

Download Cygwin 1.7 (or newer) from the ​Cygwin page (​direct link).

Start the installer, choose "Install from internet", select a directory to install Cygwin, and one for the packages to be downloaded to, then set up your connection and pick a mirror.

You're going to need the following packages in order to compile and run ​rTorrent:

• gcc
• libcurl-devel
• libncurses-devel
• libtool
• make
• openssl-devel
• patch
• pkg-config
• subversion
• wget

These might require some other packages, let them be installed. Wait until the installer downloads and installs the necessary packages, check wherever you want shortcuts, and close the installer. When you're done, start Cygwin (if you choose not create any shortcuts, you can start Cygwin with the cygwin.bat in your installation directory).

Now we can proceed with ​rTorrent.

Installing libsigc++

Since there is no ​libsigc++ package for ​Cygwin, we're going to need to compile this one first. By default, ​Cygwin has no /usr/localr/src, so create one.

mkdir /usr/local/src
cd /usr/local/src

Download, compile and install the latest ​libsigc++ source from the ​Gnome ftp site - for me, it was 2.2.4.2.

wget http://ftp.gnome.org/pub/GNOME/sources/libsigc++/2.2/libsigc++-2.2.4.2.tar.bz2
tar xjvf libsigc++-2.2.4.2.tar.bz2
cd libsigc++-2.2.4.2
./configure
make
make install
cd ..

Installing libTorrent

Now download the latest ​libTorrent source from the ​svn repository, compile, and install it.

svn co svn://rakshasa.no/libtorrent/trunk/libtorrent libtorrent-svn
cd libtorrent-svn
./autogen.sh
./configure --disable-mincore
make
make install
cd ..

Installing XMLRPC-C (optional)

Of course, we want to be able to control ​rTorrent via ​XMLRPC-C, let's say by rTWi. For that, we need to install ​XMLRPC-C, preferably something over version 1.07.

svn co https://xmlrpc-c.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/xmlrpc-c/stable/ xmlrpc-c-svn
cd xmlrpc-c-svn
./configure --disable-cplusplus
make
make install
cd ..

Unfortunately the 'make install' has failed for me with every version of ​XMLRPC-C I've tried, so I decided to copy the neccessary files by myself.

mkdir /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/include/xmlrpc-c/*.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/

ln -s /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/oldxmlrpc.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc.h
ln -s /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/server.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc_server.h
ln -s /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/server_abyss.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc_abyss.h
ln -s /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/server_w32httpsys.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc_server_w32httpsys.h
ln -s /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/client.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc_client.h
ln -s /usr/local/include/xmlrpc-c/server_cgi.h /usr/local/include/xmlrpc_cgi.h;

cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/xmlrpc-c-config /usr/local/bin/

cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/abyss/src/*.a /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/abyss/src/*.dll /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/expat/xmlparse/*.a /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/expat/xmlparse/*.dll /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/expat/xmltok/*.a /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/expat/xmltok/*.dll /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/libutil/*.a /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/lib/libutil/*.dll /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/src/*.a /usr/local/lib/
cp /usr/local/src/xmlrpc-c-svn/src/*.dll /usr/local/lib/

Installing rTorrent

Now download the latest ​rTorrent source from the ​svn repository.

We are going to need to do some modification on the source code. Download and apply this ​patch (see ticket ​#1184 and ticket ​#1495 at the ​rTorrent trac). After you're done, you can compile and install ​rTorrent.

svn co svn://rakshasa.no/libtorrent/trunk/rtorrent rtorrent-svn
cd rtorrent-svn
wget http://rtwi.jmk.hu/downloads/misc/rtow.diff
patch -p0 < rtow.diff
./autogen.sh
./configure --with-xmlrpc-c
make
make install
cd ..

You are now ready to run rTorrent on Windows, just type rtorrent into your Cygwin window.

Using rTorrent on Windows without installing Cygwin

Download rTorrent binaries for Windows

You can download the necessary files from the ​download section.

Direct download (7z archive)

Download and extract the ​7z archive to a directory of your choice

Please use this method only if you have no other options.

BitTorrent download (preferred)

This is the preferred method, due to my lack of upload speed.

Download the ​.torrent file and feed it to your current ​BitTorrent client. After the download is complete, move/rename the directory as you wish.

Configure rTorrent on Windows

The .rtorrent.rc configuration file can be found in the bin directory. There are some settings already set up for ease of usage, please do not modify them, unless you know what you are doing.

The default session directory is .session, and the default download directory is torrent.

You can access your partitions thru the cygdrive directory from ​rTorrent.

You are now ready to run rTorrent on Windows, just create a shortcut pointing to the rTorrent.cmd file, or start it directly.

Screenshots