Torrent tracker from scratch : Chapter 3 - Active Phase

[amazinghorse]

readme.txt

ALL INFORMATION PRESENTED IN THIS WORK FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSE ONLY!

AUTHOR NOT PROMOTE OR SUPPORT ANY OF COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT ACTIVITIES!
THE ENTIRE RISK OF USING THIS INFORMATION IN A HARM OR ILLEGAL WAY IS WITH YOU!
AND ALWAYS THINK TWICE BEFORE DOING SOMETHING STUPID!

Welcome to third chapter of "Torrent tracker from scratch" !
 
In a previous chapter you (hopefully) gain some essentials skills about server administration and torrent tracker deployment.
Now it's time to expand your knowledge base about torrent trackers CMS and possible hosting variants.
 

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"The handful of CMS"
Surprisingly... there are not so much really good CMS oriented on torrent trackers.
Even on google you most likely not find many useful links.
But we on iS community know a little bit more
Many top private trackers use it's own engines or advanced hacks.
Some well known forum CMS like phpBB or invision power board also have some community MOD's/Hacks.
So if you have good coding skills you can write your own "best around" torrent tracker engine or fork some CMS that you know very well.

However, here is a list of most popular torrent tracker engines today for you.
Choose wisely!
 
Gazelle
https://whatcd.github.io/Gazelle/
Gazelle is a web framework geared towards private torrent trackers. Although naturally focusing on music, it can be modified for most needs. Gazelle is written in PHP, JS, and MySQL.
One of the most advanced and feature rich framework.
It's have probably all that you will need and beyond, plus it has extreme flexibility.
Written by very experienced coders from What.CD.
Installation and configuration of Gazelle is not so hard, but require some skills and time.
And you must be at least a little familiar with this engine if you complete exercise in previous chapter!

Examples of using:
What.CD, BrokenStones
 

[TS / TSSE / TSUE] Templateshares
http://templateshares.net/index.php
http://templateshares-ue.net
Very popular CMS!
Simple Installation and configuration.
Tons of useful(and not very) features.
Keywords here : ready from start, work on almost every web-hosting, this is a paid solution!

Examples of using:
Acid-Lounge, Music-Vids
 
 
TorrentPier II
https://github.com/torrentpier/tracker
Nice framework especially for big projects!
Simple Installation and configuration.
Well optimized and coded solution with all necessary features.
Only one problem:
Documentation written on russian language(developers and community are russians too).
But it's absolutely not a big deal to translate it!
 
Examples of using:
AudioNews, RuTracker

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"Good place to stand"
As you know file sharing resources are not so welcome by some corporations, copyright trolls, law enforcement or even governments of some countries(especially US).
So you must be extremely careful with what you share and WHERE you share it.
Don't violate the law of the country in which you are!

Some countries more prone to freedom of speech and as well as file sharing.
Iceland and Netherlands is a most well known examples.
But of course everything has it's limits!

So best hosting option for torrent tracker owner is a offshore hosting.
With so privacy and security oriented services as possible.
 
Main requirements to hosting, in short:

• Minimum info on registration process(No geo/bio info)
• Private domain registrations(Protected WHOIS)
• Anonymous Hosting and private SSL Certificate
• Cryptocurrency(BitCoin/e.t.c) as payment method

So...

Best registration requirements:
Email address and money is all you need.

Best registration scenario:
Sign-up  using VPN/TOR, pay with bitcoins and they don't ask for any info.
 
Some well known offshore hosting :
https://www.orangewebsite.com/
https://www.1984hosting.com/
http://yohost.org/
https://www.trilightzone.org
https://ititch.com/
http://www.ccihosting.com/
 
But before you buy or accept anything, read ALWAYS terms of conditions and privacy policy!
Read them carefully and thoughtfully!
If you find ANY strange/awkward or just unclear terms, contact hosting support to clarify that!
 
 
After you get your hosting service, and everything clear, you can start your project.
Now... this is the most important and time-consuming period of your project development!
All your actions should be careful, and you must have a lot of perseverance!
And always test every thing you do in safe environment, before implement it on 'production'!
Everything is ready, only when it is really done well!

Good luck!

And see you in the last(?) chapter!