flux

Flux is an easy way to find and acquire public torrent files using Node. This module provides fancy, programmatic access to the following public torrent sites:

• torrentz.eu: torrent metasearch engine.
• VODO: free, legal, high quality movies and shows.

Installation

The easiest way to install flux is through npm:

npm install flux

This will drop it into the current node_modules directory and make it available to Node.

Flux can also be installed manually by checking out the git repository and copying the lib directory to the desired destination and require ing the full path.

Tests

flux uses vows for unit testing:

vows -i test/*

Note: running with -i is required or else the tests won't work correctly.

Basic Usage

If the goal is to just get a torrent file, the acquire function will automatically find a torrent and download it. It will take the top result and download from the first available source, and then save it to the current directory:

var flux = require('flux');

flux.acquire('ubuntu 11.04', function(err) {
    if (err) {
        console.log('there was an error: ' + err.message);
    }
    else {
        console.log('ubuntu torrent downloaded!');
    }
});

Advanced Usage

Flux is very straightforward. It exposes a very simple, fully async API. Below is a guide to the more advanced usage of flux.

In order to use flux, you must require it:

var flux = require('flux');

Finding Torrent Files

Use of flux begins with finding torrents to download. The search and find functions are exposed for this purpose. search performs a full search against all provders, while find will return the top result for each provider:

var flux = require('flux');

//returns a list of torrents from all configured providers. this can be
//very large.
flux.search('ubuntu 11.04', function(err, torrents) {
    for (var c = 0; c < torrents.length; c++) {
        console.log(torrents[c]);
    }
});

//returns a list of the top results from each provider. each provider
//will have one entry in the list (one top result per provider).
flux.find('zenith', function(err, torrents) {
    console.log(torrents);
});

A torrent is an object that describes a result from a provider. This result from the find call for 'zenith' is a list with a single entry. This entry is a result for Zenith, a free movie on VODO ( http://www.vodo.net/zenith ):

{ title: 'Zenith Part 1 2011 720p x264 VODO',
  torrentInfo: 
   { size: '1152 Mb',
     seeds: '3,301',
     peers: '98',
     hash: '1112d9e509d6fcd93d9c6be45f70994a93d4dc32' },
  provider: 'Torrentz',
  category: 'Movies',
  contentInfo: 
   { isHD: true,
     quality: '720p',
     codec: 'H.264',
     digitalMedium: 'Unknown',
     originalMedium: 'Unknown' } }

The torrentInfo object describes the torrent file with information gleaned from the website. Note that not all information might be available for a given torrent. It depends on what information the provider exposes.

The contentInfo object will change based on what information is in the search result. Currently, the following types of content are supported:

• Movies
• Audio (music, soundtracks)

Support for the following is planned:

• Software
• TV Shows

Locating Torrents

After having found torrent files to download, flux must be pointed to one or more sources in order to actually download the file. There are two API calls for this: locate and source. They following the above pattern: locate will find all possible sources for a torrent and source will find a specific source, if it's available.

If your goal is to download a torrent, this step is optional. The fetch function will call locate internally if it is given a torrent search result (see below). If you need control over the download source, this step is required.

//returns an associative array of source name -> source
flux.locate(torrent, function(err, sources) {
    console.log(sources);
});

//returns just a single source object.
flux.source('torlock.com', torrent, function(err, source) {
    console.log(source);
});

A source is an object of the following structure:

{ name: 'sometorrentsite.com',
     href: 'http://www.sometorrentsite.com/torrent/abcd' }

Note: the href property of a source is not necessarily a direct download link!

The locate method returns an associative array with torrent hashes as the keys. Each entry in this associative array is itself an associative array, describing all of the sources for that particular torrent.

The source method always returns a single source object.

source and locate can take a single torrent result or a list of results. The returned set of sources will be compiled for all passed in results.

Downloading Torrents

The final step to getting a torrent file is to download it. The single fetch API call is provided for this:

//fetch a torrent from first available source
flux.fetch(torrent, 'mytorrent.torrent', function(err) {
    //err will be null if successful.
});

//or fetch from a source directly
flux.fetch(source, 'mytorrent.torrent', function(err) {
    //...
});

The torrent file is saved to the current working directory by default. This can be changed via configuration (see below). If the download was successful, the err parameter of the callback will null.

Configuration

flux exposes some simple configuration properties. The default config is below:

{
    saveDir: '.',
    ignoredSources: [],
    verbose: false,
    providers: [ flux.torrentz ]
}

The save directory (saveDir) is where all torrent files will be saved after being downloaded. ignoredSources will remove various torrent sites from the list of sources to download from. Setting verbose to true will enable the logging functionality. Configuration is modified by calling flux.configure:

flux.configure({
    saveDir: './torrents',
    ignoredSources: [ '1337x.org' ],
    verbose: true,
    providers: [ flux.vodo, flux.torrentz ]
});

Providers

The following providers currently exist:

• flux.torrentz: Programmatic access to the torrentz.eu search engine and the many torrent sites it indexes. Not all sources are implemented for torrentz yet, but enough should be implemented to download almost any torrent indexed by the site.
• flux.vodo: Programmatic access to VODO films. The provider has one source (itself). Provides access to all of VODO's feature films and TV shows. Does not search the "non-promoted" videos. Not enabled by default.

Custom Providers

Custom providers can be coded in order to search any given content source (website, file, etc). Every provider must be a module that exports the following properties and methods:

• name: The name of this provider (string).
• owns(torrent): True if this torrent object is owned by the provider. Check against torrent.provider property.
• search(text, callback): Given a query, returns a list of relevant results. The objects in the list must be torrent objects as described under "Finding Torrent Files". Asynchronous.
• find(text, callback): Given a query, returns the top result as a torrent object. Asynchronous.
• locate(torrent, callback): Given a torrent object, locates download sources for that torrent. Returned result must be a object with a single entry (key being the hash of the torrent). The value of this property is itself an object where each property key is a source name, and the value is { name, href }. name is the source name, and href is the torrent download link.
• source(sourceName, torrent, callback): Given a source name and torrent object, locates and creates the corresponding source object. Result must be a Location object. Asynchronous.

When the provider is complete, it can be passed into flux.configure as a provider like any built-in provider.

It may also be required to create a custom downloader for the provider, for example if the site does not provide direct torrent download links as a source. Currently the downloaders are contained in the downloaders.js file and that file would require an update if a custom downloader is needed. The next version will have more modular downloader definitions.

Disclaimers

This software is not affiliated with any provider or site it connects to in any way. It isn't owned by those websites, and its developers have no connection to the sites. All data and information comes from torrentz.eu, vodo.net, or other domains; this software simply gives programmatic access to these websites.