What is Transmission?
Transmission downloads and shares files through BitTorrent. It provides a native macOS application, GTK and Qt interfaces for Linux and BSD, and a Qt-based Windows application. Its torrent controls include starting, pausing and removing transfers, inspecting peers and trackers, and selecting individual files and their download priorities.
For unattended operation, Transmission runs as a headless daemon on servers and routers. A built-in web interface controls running instances remotely, while transmission-remote provides command-line access through the RPC interface. Separate utilities examine, create and edit torrent files.
Transmission is a volunteer project with publicly available source code and documented build procedures. Its documentation is acknowledged to be partly outdated. The older transmission-cli client is deprecated and limited to a single torrent at a time; transmission-remote is the preferred command-line client.
Transmission screenshots
Explore the interface. Open a screenshot to view it at full size.
Source: official Transmission project page.
Key capabilities
- Torrent management Adds torrents, starts or pauses transfers, removes torrents and displays download progress.
- File selection Selects files within a torrent and assigns download priorities.
- Transfer inspection Shows peers, trackers, transfer speeds, file availability and torrent details.
- Headless operation Runs a background daemon on servers and routers without a desktop interface.
- Remote control Provides browser access, command-line management and an RPC interface, with authentication and IP restrictions available for remote access.
- Torrent utilities Includes dedicated tools to examine, create and edit torrent files.
Where Transmission fits
Transmission fits desktop BitTorrent use and unattended download or seeding setups managed from another machine. Its daemon and command-line client also support scripted torrent management, including adding transfers, checking progress and retrieving session statistics.
Before deployment, administrators should verify operating-system requirements, download-directory configuration, peer connectivity and bandwidth limits. Remote access requires attention to authentication, allowed IP addresses and the RPC bind address. Package contents vary by distribution, and configuration instructions should be checked against the installed release because parts of the documentation are outdated.
Install
sudo cmake --install .Reviews of Transmission
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