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Community ▶ Questions ▶ Problems seeding torrent - can't connect to tracker.
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Problems seeding torrent - can't connect to tracker.

networking

Okay so this morning I uploaded a torrent to thepiratebay.org, I had assumed there would be no issues what so ever as I have downloaded, and subsequently seeded, many torrents before. But this was my first time posting a torrent of my own.

Basically what I did was create the torrent through uTorrent on my desktop PC, start seeding it through uTorrent then upload it to TPB. I then copied the folder via FTP onto my Linode (to avoid interference from other peers). Then I downloaded the torrent file from TPB that I posted onto my Linode and launched it with````
btdownloadcurses 

The client ran through a rather long check (It's two DVD's) and got to 99.9%…I'm not worried about that since I originally included the Readme text file and it was still incomplete, I saw a minor difference in the size of the textfile after uploading via FTP so I removed it... I figured I'd just let it download the 2kb file from my home PC when it connected. The problem is that it wont connect to peers, at all.

| file: Nine Inch Nails live - Sydney Hordern Pavillion DVD 24.2.2009 |
| size: 5,951,122,589 (5.5 G) |
| dest: /home/geekman/Nine Inch Nails live - Sydney Hordern Pavillion DVD 24.2.2009 |
| progress: ##############################################################################################################################################_ |
| status: connecting to peers (99.9%) |
| speed: 0 B/s down - 0 B/s up |
| totals: 0.0 M down - 0.0 M up |
| error(s): [09:05:19] Problem connecting to tracker - timeout exceeded |
| [09:00:19] Problem connecting to tracker - timeout exceeded |
| [08:55:19] Problem connecting to tracker - timeout exceeded |
| [08:50:19] Problem connecting to tracker - timeout exceeded 

I've tried re-making the torrent with other trackers, and I've tried just leaving it for a couple of hours as is all I could find recommended. None of this seems to have worked. I know the torrent itself is fine because I have peers I am uploading to from my home PC, and I have loaded the data onto another PC and loaded the torrent into it, and it checked the file as 100% (I included the readme file this time) and started to seed fine. I'm really at a loss here because like I said, I've downloaded and uploaded torrents just fine before, even from TPB, and I've confirmed that Dallas (the DC I am in) does not block any ports.

Here are my firewall rules:

geekman@theconstruct:~$ sudo iptables -L
[sudo] password for geekman:
Chain INPUT (policy DROP)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT all -- 192.168.130.xxx anywhere
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere state RELATED,ESTABLISHED
ACCEPT icmp -- anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:ssh state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:www state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:ftp state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:smtp state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:https state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:pop3 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:imap2 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:imaps state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:pop3s state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:svn state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpts:6881:6999 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:6666 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:x11-6 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:5000 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:4001 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:4003 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:4000 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:7777 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:8806 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:5000 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:4040 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:4041 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:6060 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:2344 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere theconstruct tcp dpt:1515 state NEW
ACCEPT all -- localhost anywhere state NEW
REJECT all -- dsl-189-129-104-242-dyn.prod-infinitum.com.mx anywhere state NEW reject-with icmp-port-unreachable

Chain FORWARD (policy DROP)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT all -- 192.168.130.xxx anywhere
ACCEPT all -- anywhere 192.168.130.xxx
ACCEPT all -- anywhere anywhere state RELATED,ESTABLISHED
ACCEPT icmp -- anywhere anywhere
ACCEPT udp -- anywhere anywhere udp dpts:33434:33523 state NEW
ACCEPT all -- theconstruct anywhere state NEW
ACCEPT all -- localhost anywhere state NEW
REJECT all -- dsl-189-129-104-242-dyn.prod-infinitum.com.mx anywhere state NEW reject-with icmp-port-unreachable
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere morpheus tcp dpt:www state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere morpheus tcp dpt:www state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere morpheus tcp dpts:6881:6999 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere morpheus tcp dpt:ssh state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere morpheus tcp dpt:5901 state NEW
ACCEPT tcp -- anywhere morpheus tcp dpt:x11-1 state NEW
ACCEPT udp -- anywhere morpheus udp dpt:x11-1 state NEW
ACCEPT all -- 192.168.130.xxx anywhere

Chain OUTPUT (policy ACCEPT)
target prot opt source destination
ACCEPT all -- anywhere 192.168.130.xxx
LOG all -- anywhere anywhere LOG level debug prefix `BANDWIDTH_OUT:'

****Note that the above partial IP's are for another Linode in Dallas.****

As you can see I've opened the default port range for the Python Bit Torrent client in Ubuntu, and all outgoing traffic allowed.

I've also double checked my firewall and I can't see a reason why it would be blocking anything - especially if it usually works for other torrents.

One thing I did notice from netstat which I can't figure out is this:

tcp 0 1 192.168.130.xxx:40408 192.121.86.6:www SYNSENT 18465/python tcp 0 1 192.168.130.xxx:36141 192.121.86.2:www SYNSENT 18465/python
tcp 0 1 192.168.130.xxx:55214 192.121.86.5:www SYNSENT 18465/python tcp 0 1 192.168.130.xxx:36147 192.121.86.2:www SYNSENT 18465/python

Where the partial LAN IP is my linode's. I can only assume these are from BT as they are from the python process, not sure though. Also, I have other processes listed as listening on my LAN IP like that, however, the foreign address listed by netstat is not also a private IP. Confused about that one.

I'm thinking that btdownloadcurses does not support multiple trackers and just uses the first it finds (correct me if I'm wrong there, please), which I determined:

geekman@theconstruct:~$ btshowmetainfo NineInchNailsliveSydneyHordernPavillionDVD_24.2.2009.5010933.TPB.torrent
btshowmetainfo 20021207 - decode BitTorrent metainfo files

metainfo file.: NineInchNailsliveSydneyHordernPavillionDVD24.2.2009.5010933.TPB.torrent info hash…..: 8618e29d9fd2847ace8a8d18adb9981565cea042 directory name: Nine Inch Nails live - Sydney Hordern Pavillion DVD 24.2.2009 files………: Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VIDEOTS.BUP (8192) Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VIDEOTS.IFO (8192) Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VTS010.BUP (36864)
Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VTS010.IFO (36864) Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VTS011.VOB (1073739776)
Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VTS012.VOB (1073739776) Disc 1/VIDEOTS/VTS013.VOB (415209472)
Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VIDEOTS.BUP (8192)
Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VIDEOTS.IFO (8192)
Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VTS010.BUP (47104) Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VTS010.IFO (47104)
Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VTS011.VOB (1073739776) Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VTS012.VOB (1073739776)
Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VTS013.VOB (1073739776) Disc 2/VIDEOTS/VTS014.VOB (164511744)
NIN-SHP DVD Readme.txt (2572)
NINSYDV2[artwork].jpg (327092)
NINSYDV2[artwork].pdf (2172125)
archive size..: 5951122589 (1418 * 4194304 + 3599517)
announce url..: http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce

I then tried going to the tracker announce URL in a browser. On my desktop and on a completely separate non-Linode VPS I got __"Invalid Request"__ but when I did it through lynx again but in my Linode it got stuck on: __"Making HTTP connection to tracker.thepiratebay.org"__.

When I try to ping the address, I get various 192.168.86.xxx IP's which I cannot ping, however this is the same on my desktop and the other VPS as well.

****Edit:**** Forgot to mention that mtr on both my Linode and the other VPS seem to reach the same host before they seemingly hit a firewall that rejects ICMP packets or something:

                                                               My traceroute  [v0.72]

theconstruct (0.0.0.0) Sun Jul 19 09:36:23 2009
Keys: Help Display mode Restart statistics Order of fields quit
Packets Pings
Host Loss% Snt Last Avg Best Wrst StDev
1. up4.linode.com 0.0% 5 2.6 2.6 2.5 2.8 0.1
2. po101.dsr01.dllstx2.theplanet.com 0.0% 5 2.5 2.8 2.5 3.1 0.2
3. te7-4.dsr01.dllstx3.theplanet.com 0.0% 5 94.2 20.9 2.5 94.2 41.0
4. et5-1.ibr04.dllstx3.theplanet.com 0.0% 5 2.8 3.1 2.5 4.6 0.9
5. ???
6. 10gigabitethernet5-2.core1.ash1.he.net 0.0% 5 34.4 34.8 34.4 35.9 0.6
7. 10gigabitethernet2-1.core1.lon1.he.net 0.0% 4 116.5 119.1 116.5 126.1 4.7
8. 10gigabitethernet1-1.core1.ams1.he.net 0.0% 4 124.5 125.8 124.5 129.4 2.4
9. ams-ix.tc2-ams.nl.p80.net 0.0% 4 120.3 130.7 120.2 162.2 21.0
10. v1317-r73.tul-cr1-r84.sto.se.p80.net 0.0% 4 151.8 151.6 150.9 151.8 0.5
11. dcs-kn1-demarc0.cust.p80.net 0.0% 4 348.7 193.4 139.8 348.7 103.5
12. sth-cty1-crn-1-ge-1-7.dcs.net 0.0% 4 140.0 142.7 139.7 150.6 5.3
13. sth-sln1-crn-1-ge-1-6.dcs.net 0.0% 4 139.6 139.8 139.4 140.5 0.5
14. ???

````

Not sure what other information I should give, but just ask. Also, if anyone is curious and wants to see if they can connect to the torrent, it's here: http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/5010933

And…if anyone wants to help me seed the thing and has 5.4 GB space left anywhere and a decent uplink, let me know and I'll get you a direct link to the torrent's contents so you can download it quickly, not expecting that though. I just want to be able to seed it myself, at least.

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm going to leave it running in screen overnight to see if it does just start to connect…even though I think I'm past that now…I need to try and find some way of fixing this soon as my home connection is only 1 Mbit up …it's going to choke when I announce the torrent link, so I need to super seed it.

Thanks in advance!

25 Replies

Hmmm… if you look at the ifconfig line for your private IP, what does the netmask look like? It should be something like:

          inet addr:192.168.137.246  Bcast:192.168.255.255  Mask:255.255.128.0

The netmask should be 255.255.128.0. I suspect it might be set to something "wider" than that, perhaps 255.0.0.0, or else there's a typo. tracker.thepiratebay.org is within 192.121.86.0/24, so it is very easy to get caught up by the private IP's netmask if it's not right.

Here's my LAN interface:

eth0:2    Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr fe:fd:43:12:d0:17
          inet addr:192.168.130.xxx  Bcast:192.168.130.255  Mask:255.255.255.0
          UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST  MTU:1500  Metric:1
          Interrupt:5

So with that, I don't see how I'd be having any issues there.

Just in case it's of any use…but I don't see anything here either:

root@theconstruct:~# route -n
Kernel IP routing table
Destination     Gateway         Genmask         Flags Metric Ref    Use Iface
67.18.208.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
192.168.130.0   0.0.0.0         255.255.255.0   U     0      0        0 eth0
169.254.0.0     0.0.0.0         255.255.0.0     U     1000   0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         67.18.208.1     0.0.0.0         UG    100    0        0 eth0
0.0.0.0         67.18.208.1     0.0.0.0         UG    100    0        0 eth0

Weird. From the netstat you pasted, it's pretty clearly binding to the private IP when trying to connect:

tcp        0      1 192.168.130.xxx:40408   192.121.86.6:www        SYN_SENT    18465/python

Is there anything in your application's configuration to set it to bind to a specific IP address? You might have to do that to convince it to do the right thing. Or, if you aren't actively using it, try removing your private IP temporarily and see if that gets it moving…

I did try removing the private interface, but that didn't change much. Like I said, other applications are binded to my LAN IP too…it's just that the foreign address is never also a LAN IP. Besides, given my routing table, any source address should be routed out through my Linode's default gateway (67.18.208.1 I think it says?).

My theory is that given the way the tracker is resolving (to a 192.121.86.0/24 address), even though I have no subnets configured on my VPS that would conflict with it, that may be conflicting with higher level routing of some kind for all Linode hosts, since I other Linodes would not all be on a 192.168.xxx.xxx subnet, I can only assume. This would explain to me why I can't connect to the tracker's announce URL through lynx, even though Dallas doesn't block any ports.

Can someone possibly confirm that this might be the case, or could you try lynx http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce ? You should get "Invalid Request" if it connects properly, or stuck on "Making HTTP connection" if it fails.

I did lodge a ticket asking why it might be that I cannot connect, I may have to open another with my specific theory, if someone thinks it's possible/valid. One thing I cannot wrap my head around is the fact that downloaded and uploaded torrents from TPB on my VPS many times before, I can't understand it.

Oh, also, I set 192.161.86.0/24 as a fully trusted network on my firewall, just to be sure that's not an issue.

Thanks for the help!

Works for me from Newark, at least:

$ wget http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
--10:58:32--  http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
           => `announce'
Resolving tracker.thepiratebay.org... 192.121.86.6, 192.121.86.8, 192.121.86.4, ...
Connecting to tracker.thepiratebay.org|192.121.86.6|:80... failed: Connection refused.
Connecting to tracker.thepiratebay.org|192.121.86.8|:80... failed: Connection refused.
Connecting to tracker.thepiratebay.org|192.121.86.4|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 400 Invalid Request
10:58:32 ERROR 400: Invalid Request.

192.121.86.0/24 is not a part of RFC1918 space, so it's not a private LAN block (only 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12, and 192.168.0.0/16 are reserved for private networks). And yep, all private IP assignments in Dallas are on 192.168.128.0/17, so there shouldn't be a conflict there.

I note that there's multiple IPs for tracker.thepiratebay.org and it took until the third one to get one that isn't replying with connref. Is it possible your application sucks at handling this situation? Also, might be worth removing all of your firewall rules temporarily and seeing if it works, just to eliminate that as a possible cause.

Well my application comes, I believe, as a standard install on most Ubuntu distributions. Regardless, I've used it before and it's worked fine. I have, more specifically, used the client with other torrent's just fine from TPB. Although, I can't be sure that they all used this tracker. I'll try disabling the firewall completely tomorrow, though I did try the same thing on my other Linode which accesses the internet separately, and it didn't seem to work - though it's also in Dallas.

Thanks.

FYI, it's usually not a good idea to post in a company's forums that you're using their services to break the law (I'm pretty sure you're not the copyright holder on "Nine Inch Nails live - Sydney Hordern Pavillion DVD 24.2.2009").

Please do your research. Nine inch Nails is not against torrenting their material and give permission to do so.

That DVD is free to be distributed and many torrents on piratebay are not illegal nor breaking copyright.

This DVD was authored by a friend (so he would hold authorship) from footage which people who went to this concert filmed themselves. None of the material used is copyrighted, and Trent himself has done many things to allow fans to film and create their own DVD's (battled for more lenient camera policies at concert's etc…) so I can't see how any of it is illegal. If someone wants to come after me to take down the torrent, then that's fine, just prove to me satisfactorily that I've broken any laws. There's much larger groups like www.thisoneisonus.org and nobody has taken them down after months of work. So I don't really see any need to worry about breaking any sort of copyright. Unless Nine Inch Nails' ex-record company Interscope decides to try and claim rights to some of (they don't hold any rights to newer ones) the performances…even after Trent himself has encouraged this type of behaviour, I don't see what opposition I would facing on the issue. Trust me, if I thought I was really doing anything all that illegal, I wouldn't be doing it…and I certainly wouldn't openly admit it here. I'm not that stupid.

One last appendage to hopefully I've put claims like this to rest. I've also openly explain what it is I'm trying to seed on my VPS - a fan made DVD - when consulting Linode staff in my support tickets. I haven't had so much of a mention in any reply about breaking any laws from their standpoint. Obviously, if they contacted me asking that I remove the torrent, I would do so.

And realistically, that is beyond the scope of this thread, what I'm wanting to discuss is the technical issue here, not a legal one. I really don't want to start a whole thing about it…so if anyone else wants to get at me for it, PM me; this is a thread for a technical issue.

Thanks.

Back to my issue…I've just disabled my firewall completely and am still stuck on "Making TTP connection" - can anyone on a Dallas Linode verify that they can access the tracker's announce URL? If I knew it wasn't something to do with the DC I might try just reinstalling my other Linode and see if that helps. Or…even temporarily move it to Newark, my home DSL line is choking trying to seed it, I've uploaded 11GB so far :P

Thanks for all the help everyone!

Check out http://openbittracker.com and try that URL, I hear that TPB is changing to a pay for site and they might start disassembling parts of it. I, personally, haven't researched any of this and currently cannot but I'd look into it.

I actually have that tracker listed as one of the trackers in the torrent. I don't know if the list got overriden when I posted to TPB or what, but it's never once used anything but the TPB tracker and I'm not sure how to force it to use any others. I can't realistically re-release the torrent since there's already 30-odd seeders.

This issue is becoming less of need and more a curiosity, as after seeding from home for three days straight I think I've made it past the choke period without super seeding myself. I still really have no clue as to why it does not work, though.

Thanks.

Hrm okay…so I just found out something extremely curious. I tried to reach the openbittorrent announce URL from my Linode as well, with exactly the same results using Lynx. Once again, I got "Invalid Request" from my desktop's browser. Same with the denis.stalker.h3q.com tracker.

Is there some kind of global tracker ban list that my IP could be on that I don't know about…this is quite odd. Maybe over night all my torrenting capabilities have broken somehow, I'll try downloading something soon to be sure. Not sure what's happened.

Try a different client, and try different ports. The DC might be blocking known bittorrent data ports the 6881-whatever. If the different ports don't work you might want to open a support ticket and have Linode contact the DC and ask.

Well I just tried downloading another torrent and got the same timeout problem - it was also using the same tracker. That kind of surprised me since torrents were working fine just a couple of weeks ago, I'll have to try and figure out which torrent it was that I actually downloaded last time. Debating formatting my other Linode to see if it will work on that…though I'm not sure that it would make any difference.

I'm in the process of using a different client, I believe it's bittorrnado or something. As for different ports, I'll give that a shot. Not sure about the DC blocking ports since I did already post a ticket asking and they said that no ports are blocked.

Sorry, I had forgotten that NIN didn't mind this stuff.

Depending on how much of a mood you're in for some science, Linode does pro-rate adds/removes to the day; you could rent a 360 in another datacenter for the day and see if that works.

I suppose I could do that, if it's going to cost me as little as I think it would.

@geekman:

I've also openly explain what it is I'm trying to seed on my VPS - a fan made DVD - when consulting Linode staff in my support tickets. I haven't had so much of a mention in any reply about breaking any laws from their standpoint. Obviously, if they contacted me asking that I remove the torrent, I would do so.
You're precluding the possibility of Linode employees being NIN fans, and already knowing this.

:)

I have to be honest with you… I kind of assumed some of you guys would be, I don't know…you just seemed to me like those kind of geeks. :P

Anyways. So I got myself a third Linode in Newark and I got "Invalid Request" when trying to go to http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce - so that I'm thinking means it works - like I said, on my other Dallas nodes, it just hangs trying to connect.

I also wiped my second Linode clean and did the same test, it still just hangs. I have no idea what's going on or why all of a sudden it's not working, but my conclusion at this point that there's got to be some kind of filtering going on at Dallas even though I know it's been said multiple times by staff previously that there is none. I'm just not sure what's up. I'd love to know if anyone else in Dallas is able to connect to ANY tracker announce URL - and not you have been able to in the past…because so was I, at least I can only assume since I was seeding torrents before.

Thanks.

Oh and…any other suggestions for testing before I'm done with this Linode? I feel like I should do something else to further isolate the problem…but I don't see there being much else I can do other than maybe move the Linode to another DC to test…and I don't really feel like hassling the Linode staff over it.

I'm getting Invalid Requests on my VPS in the Dallas DC as well.

Do you mind if I ask what host you're on? Both mine are in 55 and 60…so I'm not really sure what they could have all that in common other than being mine :-\ I kind of understood it might be possible that there was a configuration I had done which I hadn't thought of to my Linodes to stop this from working…but I just wiped one and it still didn't want to connect, it's reasonable to assume, I'd think, that it's now a completely standard setup. This is really causing my head to hurt. :P

The only thing I can think of at this point is that The Pirate Bay (and I suppose some other trackers) decided to ban both of my IP's (odd, since I've never used BT before on one of my Linode's)…and I didn't even think there was any kind of ban list, for public trackers at least. I've now had two people tell me they can connect to the tracker from their Linode's in Dallas, so I'm all out of ideas right now.

Suggestions welcome! Thanks for the help thus far.

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