Deluge FAQ

  1. General
    1. Is Deluge Free? Can I get the source?
    2. How do I install Deluge?
    3. I have an issue starting or using Deluge.
    4. How to start the various user-interfaces?
    5. How do I set Deluge as my default BitTorrent program?
    6. How do I set Deluge as my default program for Magnet URIs?
    7. Where does Deluge store its settings/config?
    8. Where does Deluge store the .torrent files?
    9. How do I reset the settings back to default?
  2. User Interface Specific
    1. GTK UI
      1. How do I start the GTK UI?
    2. Web UI
      1. How do I start the Web UI?
      2. What is the default password
      3. How do I change the password?
      4. How can I reset forgotten password?
      5. How do I configure plugins with the Web UI?
      6. How do I auto-connect to a specific daemon?
      7. How do I enable HTTPS?
      8. Can I bind the Web UI to port 80 in Linux?
    3. Console UI
      1. How do I start the Console UI?
      2. How can I run multiple commands from the terminal?
      3. How do I connect the console UI to a daemon on a non-default port?
      4. I encountered BadLoginError("Password does not match") with localhost daemon?
    4. Daemon
      1. Why is Deluge still listed in my task manager even after I close it?
      2. How do I start and stop the daemon?
      3. How do I start the daemon with logging enabled?
      4. I can't connect to the daemon from another machine
      5. How do I make Deluge connect to a different daemon?
      6. How do I stop Deluge from killing the daemon when I quit the GTK UI?
  3. BitTorrent Related
    1. The files tab shows a different percentage-completed than the torrent
    2. What do all those numbers in parentheses mean?
    3. Seeding torrents have no queue position! Why?
    4. What bandwidth settings should I use?
    5. Deluge sometimes creates files that I didn't ask it to download?
    6. I lost data on force recheck?
    7. Does Deluge support Initial or Super Seed?
    8. Does Deluge have an embedded tracker?
    9. Does Deluge support multi-tracker torrents?
    10. What is the difference between full allocation and compact allocation?
    11. Selective downloading isn't working. How come?
    12. Which ports should I use?
    13. Deluge uses random ports instead of selected one, why?
    14. What does "Auto Managed" do?
    15. Does Deluge have an equivalent to "Force Start"?
    16. What is a Magnet URI?
    17. What is Peer TOS Byte?
    18. Can Deluge use blocklists such as SafePeer or PeerGuardian?
    19. I have a status bar warning: "No Incoming Connections!"
  4. Enable Deluge Logging


General

Is Deluge Free? Can I get the source?

Yes, Deluge is Free Software, as defined by the Free Software Foundation, and is released under the GPL, giving our users complete freedom. The source code is available in the download section. Our GPL nature allows you to be 100% sure that our program will never “spy” on your activities. Closed-source BitTorrent clients cannot make that same claim.

How do I install Deluge?

Installing

I have an issue starting or using Deluge.

See Troubleshooting and Bug Reporting

How to start the various user-interfaces?

See UI specific questions

How do I set Deluge as my default BitTorrent program?

On Windows, the installer should do this automatically. On Linux/Unix? (GNOME), right-click on a torrent file, click on properties, click on the "open with" tab. Is Deluge listed there? If so, select it to be your default, if not, click on "add", then click on "use custom command". Insert /usr/bin/deluge and click add.

How do I set Deluge as my default program for Magnet URIs?

  • GNOME users can associate Magnets with Deluge with the following commands:
    gconftool-2 -t string -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/command 'deluge "%s"'
    gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/needs_terminal false
    gconftool-2 -t bool -s /desktop/gnome/url-handlers/magnet/enabled true
    
    Also may require running the following:
    gvfs-mime --set x-scheme-handler/magnet deluge.desktop
    
  • Firefox users can reset the Magnet association with:
    • Put about:config into address bar and change network.protocol-handler.expose.magnet to false. You will be prompted next time you click a Magnet to set an association with Deluge. (e.g. /usr/bin/deluge)
  • Windows users should simply re-run the installer and select the magnet association option.
  • OSX GTK does not support Magnet URIs (see #2420) but there is a plugin available: http://forum.deluge-torrent.org/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=52619

Where does Deluge store its settings/config?

The default location for the Deluge config directory is in the home directory of the current user. The config location can be manually changed by using the --config option at startup.

Linux, BSD and Mac OSX
~/.config/deluge
Windows OS
%APPDATA%\deluge

When running Deluge as a service the config directory is relative to the user specified in the service configuration.

Where does Deluge store the .torrent files?

Within the Deluge config in a directory named state.

How do I reset the settings back to default?

If you don't care about losing your current torrents then delete everything in Deluge's config directory.

If you do want to keep your current torrents then delete everything except for the state folder.

User Interface Specific

GTK UI

How do I start the GTK UI?

The main graphical interface. Can be started with either of the following:

deluge
deluge-gtk

Web UI

How do I start the Web UI?

The web interface enables access to Deluge from your browser.

There are two ways to enable this interface:

  1. From the GTK UI you can enable the WebUI plugin.
  2. If running the Deluge daemon deluged it is recommended not use the plugin and instead run the standalone Web UI:
    deluge-web
    

Open the browser at http://localhost:8112.

What is the default password

The Web UI default password is deluge.

For security you should change this upon first login.

How do I change the password?

In the Web UI:

  1. Click on Preferences.
  2. Select the Interface category.
  3. Fill out the fields under Password.
  4. Click Change button.

How can I reset forgotten password?

  1. Stop the Web UI before modifying the web.conf file.
  2. Edit web.conf in config and delete the entire pwd_sha1 line or use quick method via command-line e.g.:
    sed -i.bak "/pwd_sha1/d" ~/.config/deluge/web.conf
    
  3. Start the Web UI and the password will have been reset to default password deluge.

How do I configure plugins with the Web UI?

Not all plugins are configurable directly with the Web UI, see [Plugins] table for those with Web UI code.

The easiest way to configure plugins is using the GTK UI. If unable to use GTK UI on the machine with your daemon, it is possible to connect to that daemon from another computer with the GTK UI. See ThinClient for more information on remote GTK UI setup.

How do I auto-connect to a specific daemon?

  1. Stop the Web UI before modifying the web.conf file.
  2. Edit web.conf in config, find "default_daemon" and set its value to the daemon id in hostlist.conf
    e.g. To connect to localhost you would open hostlist.conf as see a snippet such as:
    ...
          "123459d5a5b414159caa1323f6e0c9b240c7abcd",
          "localhost",
          58846,
    ...
    
  3. Use the first entry from hostlist, which is the id and add it to web.conf:
    "default_daemon": "123459d5a5b414159caa1323f6e0c9b240c7abcd",
    
  4. Restart the Web UI.

How do I enable HTTPS?

  1. Create a (self-signed) SSL certificate: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/ssl/ssl_faq.html#selfcert
  2. Put the resulting deluge.crt and deluge.key in the config's ssl directory.
  3. Enable HTTPS in Web UI config and modify the filepaths to match the above files.
  4. Restart the Web UI.

Can I bind the Web UI to port 80 in Linux?

You cannot bind to anything under 1024 in Linux, however with kernel >=2.6.24, you can use capabilities to allow Python to bind to port 80 securely.

So for example in Debian or Ubuntu:

  1. sudo apt-get install libcap2-bin
  2. sudo setcap 'cap_net_bind_service=+ep' /path/to/python
  3. Configure the Web UI to use port 80
  4. Restart the Web UI.

Console UI

How do I start the Console UI?

Note: Requires the Deluge daemon deluged to be running.

The text-based interface, ideal for terminal use:

deluge-console

The console can be also run in a non-interactive mode which outputs to the terminal:

deluge-console "info [torrent]"

How can I run multiple commands from the terminal?

Use ; to separate commands and enclose the commands with double quotes ":

deluge-console "connect host user pass; info"

How do I connect the console UI to a daemon on a non-default port?

$ deluge-console
>>> connect localhost 12345

I encountered BadLoginError("Password does not match") with localhost daemon?

This is likely due to mismatching config locations, ensure you are running deluge-console with same user as deluged: More Details

Daemon

Why is Deluge still listed in my task manager even after I close it?

You closed only the UI, but you did not close the daemon. Choose "Quit & Shutdown Daemon" to close both Daemon and GTK UI.

How do I start and stop the daemon?

deluged
pkill deluged

Note: Deluge accepts the SIGTERM signal and cleanly shuts down.

How do I start the daemon with logging enabled?

See: Troubleshooting

Using the --do-not-daemonize (-d) option you can also log to console:

deluged -d [-L <loglevel>] [-l <logfile>]

I can't connect to the daemon from another machine

See ThinClient for more information but the summary steps are:

  1. Configure the daemon to allow remote connections
  2. Configure Authentication
  3. Restart the daemon.

How do I make Deluge connect to a different daemon?

By default, Deluge (GTK UI) is in classic mode, the daemon and GTK UI are linked together. To disable classic mode:

  1. Preferences -> Interface
  2. Disable (untick) Classic Mode
  3. Restart Deluge and it will now start in thin-client mode
  4. Use the Connection Manager to enter the other daemon details

See ThinClient for more information on remote GTK UI

How do I stop Deluge from killing the daemon when I quit the GTK UI?

See above.

BitTorrent Related

The files tab shows a different percentage-completed than the torrent

The files tab will only show percentages based on completed pieces while the main view will show total completed including incomplete pieces.

What do all those numbers in parentheses mean?

Field # (#)
Seeders Number of connected seeders Total number of seeders
Peers Number of connected peers Total number of peers
Downloaded Total amount downloaded Total amount downloaded this session
Uploaded Total amount uploaded Total amount uploaded this session

Seeding torrents have no queue position! Why?

Seeds use something called "seed rank" to determine which should be active and which should be queued.  The seed rank is determined by the number of seed cycles a torrent has completed.  Torrents with fewer completed seed cycles are prioritized for seeding.  A seed cycle is completed when a torrent meets either the share ratio limit (uploaded bytes / downloaded bytes), the share time ratio (time seeding / time downloading) or seed time limit (time seeded).

What bandwidth settings should I use?

Start with the following:

Maximum Connections200
Maximum Download Speed (Kib/s)-1
Maximum Upload Speed (Kib/s)80% of upload speed
Maximum Upload Slots4
Maximum Half-Open Connections20
Maximum Connection Attempts per Second20

If you're using Windows XP*:

Maximum Half-Open Connections8

If you're using pre-SP2 Windows Vista*:

Maximum Half-Open Connections4

You can then tweak those settings to suit your connection. See Bandwidth Tweaking.

Note: if you do not know your upload speed, go to http://speedtest.net and run a test. You can view the results in KB/s by choosing "kilobytes" for "Speed Measurement" which can be accessed under "Settings" in the top left corner of the page.

  • If you have Deluge setup as a ThinClient then this setting is determined by the OS the daemon is running on, not the thin client.

Deluge sometimes creates files that I didn't ask it to download?

Deluge handles files as pieces, not as individual files. This gets tricky, as sometimes the same piece is shared between consecutive files. So if you tell Deluge to download a file, it'll download all of the pieces within that file, and if one of those pieces is shared with another file, that file will also be created, although not necessarily entirely downloaded.

Note: Deluge can be run with experimental libtorrent from libtorrent_aio branch. In this case all pieces of not wanted files will be stored in one temporary file per torrent.

I lost data on force recheck?

Force recheck discards all incomplete pieces.

Does Deluge support Initial or Super Seed?

Not yet, but it will be added in a future release, see #1903.

Does Deluge have an embedded tracker?

No and it probably never will. We want to be the best BitTorrent client around, and to do that we need to focus on just being a client.

Does Deluge support multi-tracker torrents?

Yes it does. You can edit the trackers associated with a torrent by right-clicking on a torrent within Deluge, and clicking on “Edit Trackers.”

This conforms to the BitTorrent Multitracker specifications

What is the difference between full allocation and compact allocation?

Compact allocation only allocates as much storage as it needs to keep the pieces downloaded so far. This means that pieces will be moved around to be placed at their final position in the files while downloading (to make sure the completed download has all its pieces in the correct place). In full allocation, the entire space that a file needs is allocated as soon as one piece of that file is downloaded, thus decreasing fragmentation.

We suggest that our users use full allocation.

Deluge uses sparse files for full allocation, the compact allocation option is only useful on file systems that don't support sparse files (such as FAT or HFS+).

Selective downloading isn't working. How come?

Selective downloading requires full allocation, check you are not using compact allocation. See above for details between the two.

Which ports should I use?

The official ports for Bittorrent are 6881-6889, but most ISPs block or at least throttle those ports, so users are encouraged to use a port range of something between 49152 and 65535.

Deluge uses random ports instead of selected one, why?

You will need to click OK or Apply in Preferences after changing the port however Deluge will pick a random port if the chosen port is not available.

Run netstat to check if the port is free.

What does "Auto Managed" do?

An "auto managed" torrent, is a torrent managed by Deluge. This means that it obeys Deluge's queue settings. By disabling "auto managed", a torrent will become active (i.e. start downloading/uploading). It will still be be bound by the stop ratio though (see 'Stop seed at ratio' under the Queue section of the torrent's Options tab).

Note: All active torrents (including those not "auto managed") are counted in the total active queue settings. This means that if the total number of active torrents ("auto managed" and not) exceed the limit for total active torrents in the queue settings, Deluge will automatically queue any "auto managed" torrents until the limit is no longer exceeded.

Does Deluge have an equivalent to "Force Start"?

Deluge has "auto managed" torrents which are similar, see above for details.

To make a torrent no longer "auto managed":

  1. Select the torrent in question.
  2. Select the options tab.
  3. Unselect "Auto Managed".

What is a Magnet URI?

Magnet URIs are an easy way to add torrents by their info-hash. You can learn more about them here.

What is Peer TOS Byte?

IPv4 Header Type Of Service Byte http://shorewall.net/manpages/shorewall-tcclasses.html (More Info)

Masks: Normal Service 0x00, Minimize Cost 0x02, Maximize Reliability 0x04, Maximize Throughput 0x08, Minimize-delay 0x10

Can Deluge use blocklists such as SafePeer or PeerGuardian?

You can use the Blocklist Plugin.

I have a status bar warning: "No Incoming Connections!"

You need to configure your router or firewall to allow (unblock) incoming torrent traffic for the network ports that Deluge uses.

Enabling UPnP in Deluge and on your router can automatically open the ports as needed.

Enable Deluge Logging

Troubleshooting

Last modified 7 years ago Last modified on 01/17/2017 10:26:54 AM