Heavy files
Transferring heavy files has been made easier and easier over the years, thanks to protocols designed for that purpose. BitTorrent is one of them, allowing peers to share data between each other instead of the classic client/server approach.
Such files can range from Linux images, scientific data set, movies from the public domain, AWS S3 files and much more. However the heavy nature of those files brings 2 pain points:
- you need to let a computer running for the whole download time
- changing computer means transferring or re-downloading the data
Today I am going to describe how we aggregated the features of YOOS to address those problems. A second blog post offers a deep dive into the specifics of the setup covered here.
Getting them
The example we will take is a Chaplin movie. Using the torrent feature of YOOS-Storage, we can benefit from this always available and low powered machine. That solves our first problem.
We simply need to tell the server to download the movie, from anywhere, and we can come back later to see that the movie is downloaded.
I like to make use of my transportation time to start downloads. In this case, I simply need to:
- Copy the URL of the movie to download. Here we have the URL: http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/bt/btdownload.php?type=torrent&file=Charlie_Chaplin_Mabels_Strange_Predicament.avi.torrent
- Browse our torrent web interface: http://10.8.0.1:9091
- Paste the link we previously copied
The file starts to download!
Accessing them
Few minutes after, the movie is ready to be watched. Even from that same bus I was in.
This is possible thanks to the fact that downloaded torrents end up in our File Sharing folder, accessible from my VPN and local network. While still connected to my VPN, I can open the VLC android app, and go in the Browse section where I can find the shared disk, where the movie resides, and watch it:
My bus reaches home, but I haven't finished the movie. Since the File Sharing enables any device in my home network to browse the shared files, I can resume the movie either from Kodi on my XBOX, or from VLC on my desktop. I don't need to re-download the movie to another device, as YOOS-Storage acts as a central storage place, in the safety of my home. That solves our second problem.
Key Takeaways
- YOOS-Storage aggregates different open source software to solve day to day problems
- The VPN allows to securely connect to the torrent interface and the file share
- The torrent interface allows to download heavy files
- The file share allows to browse and consume those downloaded files from any device, and anywhere