The UDP tracker
protocol is a high-performance low-overhead
BitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a special type of server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol.
In peer-to-peer file sharing, a software client on an end-user PC requests a file, and portions of the requested f ...
protocol. It uses the stateless
User Datagram Protocol
In computer networking, the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) is one of the core communication protocols of the Internet protocol suite used to send messages (transported as datagrams in packets) to other hosts on an Internet Protocol (IP) networ ...
(UDP) for data transmission instead of the HTTP protocol (over
TCP) regular trackers use. The data is in a custom binary format instead of the standard
bencode
Bencode (pronounced like ''Bee-encode'') is the encoding used by the peer-to-peer file sharing system BitTorrent for storing and transmitting loosely structured data.
It supports four different types of values:
* byte strings,
* integers,
* list ...
algorithm BitTorrent uses for most communication.
URLs for this protocol have the following format: .
Comparison with the HTTP tracker
The UDP tracker is better optimized and puts less strain on the tracking server. Neither tracker has any effect on transfer speeds.
Clients implementing the protocol
*
BitComet
*
BitLord
*BitRocket
*BitSpirit
*
Deluge
A deluge is a large downpour of rain, often a flood.
The Deluge refers to the flood narrative in the Biblical book of Genesis.
Deluge may also refer to:
History
*Deluge (history), the Swedish and Russian invasion of the Polish-Lithuanian Comm ...
*
FlashGet
*
KTorrent
*libbt
*
Libtorrent (Rasterbar)
*
qBittorrent
*
rtorrent (implementing
libTorrent (Rakshasa)
rTorrent is a text-based BitTorrent client written in C++, based on the ncurses and libTorrent (not to be confused with libtorrent) libraries for Unix, whose author's goal is "a focus on high performance and good code".
Technical detai ...
)
*
μTorrent
μTorrent, or uTorrent (see pronunciation) is a proprietary adware BitTorrent client owned and developed by Rainberry, Inc. with over 150 million users. It is the most widely used BitTorrent client outside China; globally only behind Xunlei. ...
*Turbo Torrent
*
Vuze
Vuze (previously Azureus) is a BitTorrent client used to transfer files via the BitTorrent protocol. Vuze is written in Java, and uses the Azureus Engine. In addition to downloading data linked to .torrent files, Azureus allows users to view, p ...
*XBT Client
*
MLDonkey
*
Transmission
Transmission may refer to:
Medicine, science and technology
* Power transmission
** Electric power transmission
** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power
*** Automatic transmission
*** Manual transmission
** ...
*
Tixati
Tixati is a Proprietary Software, proprietary Linux and Microsoft Windows, Windows BitTorrent client written in C++. It has Standalone program, standalone and portable software, portable versions with each new client version.
Features
In add ...
Criticisms
* Limited
IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic across the Internet. I ...
support (the protocol specifies a 32-bit integer for the IP address and supports
pseudo-headers for 128-bit IPv6 addresses)
* No mechanism for
index
Index (or its plural form indices) may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional entities
* Index (''A Certain Magical Index''), a character in the light novel series ''A Certain Magical Index''
* The Index, an item on a Halo megastru ...
sites to scrape an entire tracker
** This can be supported by traditional TCP scrape mechanisms, as it's not a performance issue.
* No mechanism for trackers to enforce client restrictions
* The UDP tracker protocol has no field to represent the user agent, as the HTTP protocol has. However, the convention to encode the user agent and version inside the peer_id field still applies.
* No mechanism for trackers to send warning messages
* No compression, especially problematic for large announce responses.
References
External links
UDP tracker protocol specificationan UDP torrent tracker list
BitTorrent
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