check rtorrent version
Please note that you need a recent version of rtorrent for magnet links to work.
rtorrent version used in these examples:
sudo dpkg -l rtorrent
ii rtorrent 0.8.9-2 ncurses BitTorrent client based on LibTorrent from rakshasa
Prepare rtorrent directory structure
The following structure will allow you to keep files in order.
mkdir ~/bittorrent
mkdir ~/bittorrent/incoming
mkdir ~/bittorrent/pending
mkdir ~/bittorrent/watch
Later we will configure ~/rtorrent.rc to automatically detect new torrent files added in the directory ~/bittorrent/watch
Use following options in file ~/.rtorrent.rc
# This is an example resource file for rTorrent. Copy to
# ~/.rtorrent.rc and enable/modify the options as needed. Remember to
# uncomment the options you wish to enable.
# Maximum number of simultanious uploads per torrent.
max_uploads = 5
# Global upload and download rate in KiB. "0" for unlimited.
download_rate =
upload_rate = 10
# Default directory to save the downloaded torrents.
directory = ./incoming
# Watch a directory for new torrents, and stop those that have been
# deleted.
schedule = watch_directory,5,5,load_start=./watch/*.torrent
#schedule = untied_directory,5,5,stop_untied=
change working directory into ~/bittorrent
To use the directory structure we created and configured, we should “cd ~/bitorrent”
( or we can use full path directories in the ~/.rtorrent.rc )
cd ~/bittorrent
rtorrent
download magnet link bash script
You can use following bash script to download a magnet link.
#!/bin/bash
## usage: ./download_magnet_url.sh "magnet_link"
## magnet link shoul be enclosed in quotes.
cd ./watch # set your watch directory here
[[ "$1" =~ xt=urn:btih:([^&/]+) ]] || exit;
echo "d10:magnet-uri${#1}:${1}e" > "meta-${BASH_REMATCH[1]}.torrent"
use the script as following
replace “magnet_link” with the real link.
cd ~/bittorrent
./download_magnet_url.sh "magnet_link"