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Thin Client

Deluge can be setup in such a way that a Deluge daemon, deluged, can be setup on a central computer, server, which can then be accessed and controlled by other computers, clients, using one of Deluge's UIs.

  • Both the Deluge client and daemon need to be the same major versions, i.e. both 1.2.x or both 1.3.x.

Deluge Daemon Setup

The Deluge daemon deluged and deluge-console should be installed on the server.

See the service guides to run deluged as a service so that it starts/stops on server boot/shutdown. Substitute any daemon start or stop commands below with the appropriate service commands.

To debug any problems setting up deluged enable logging and check for errors.

Create Default Config

To create the config directory and populate with the default files, run and then stop deluged. (If using a service substitute appropriate operating system commands):

deluged
killall deluged

Note: The config location is either the default location with reference to the user that deluged is running as. Alternatively if using a service it will be specified in the service config files with -c <path> option.

Add User to the authentication file

Create a Deluge user for clients/UIs to access the daemon by editing the authentication file, auth, located in the above config location.

The auth file should consist of lines of <username>:<password>:<level>. Replace and with your choice and with the desired authentication level.

You can use your favourite text editor to achieve this or can be done with a one-line echo command e.g.:

echo "alice:MyC0mpL3xPass:10" >> ~/.config/deluge/auth

Enable Remote Connection

We will use deluge-console to configure deluged to accept connections from computers other than localhost. For SSH Tunnelling you do not need to enable remote connections so this step can be skipped.

Using the Console in command-line mode, set the allow_remote option and then verify with these commands:

deluge-console "config -s allow_remote True"
deluge-console "config allow_remote"

If you are running deluged under another user (e.g. deluge) you will need to temporarily login as that user to enable deluge-console to access that daemon's config:

su --shell /bin/bash --login deluge

Alternatively you can edit core.conf (deluged must not be running) in the config and change allow_remote from false to true.

Start Deluge Daemon

deluged

Verify Server IP Address

You will need to know the server's IP address for configuring clients, for private IP: hostname -I or public IP: curl ifconfig.me

Congratulations! The server is now setup for remote client access.

Client Setup

Accessing deluged service with local UI Client

When attempting to access a daemon deluged on the same machine but running as a different user e.g. your login user is user and deluged is running as deluge, you may be unable access to deluged. This is due to the client automatically authorising using the localhost line in the auth file, which is assumed to be at the same config location as deluged.

The workaround is to replace the localclient line in your user config auth file (~/.config/deluge/auth) with the localclient line from the deluged config auth file e.g. /var/lib/deluge/auth.

GTK UI

The Deluge GTK UI setup require switching the GTK UI from Classic mode to Thin-client mode, then adding and connecting to the remote daemon on the server.

  1. In Preferences -> Interface and disable (untick) Classic Mode
  2. Restart deluge and you should see the Connection Manager.
  3. If it is not needed you can remove the localhost daemon.
  4. If SSH Tunnelling, before continuing Create SSH Tunnel, and for Hostname, below, 127.0.0.2 must be used.
  5. Create a new entry with Add button:
  6. Hostname is your server's IP.
  7. Port should be default 58846.
  8. Username and Password are those added to the deluged config auth file.

If this was successful a green tick should now appear as the status for the daemon you just added.

Click on Connect and the Connection Manager should disappear.

Optional step: Expand Options and select 'Automatically connect to selected host on startup' and 'Do not show this dialog on start-up'.

Congratulations! You can now access the Deluge daemon, deluged, on the server via the GTK UI.

Console

If accessing a local deluged daemon run the following and it will connect automatically:

deluge-console

To connect to a remote daemon use the connect command in deluge-console:

connect <host>[:<port>] <user> <password>

or from the terminal:

deluge-console "connect <host>[:<port>] <user> <password>"

For adding torrents directly to the daemon through automatic methods such as with autodl-irssi:

deluge-console "connect <host>[:<port>] <user> <password> ; add $(TorrentPathName) ; exit"

Web UI

The Web UI is slightly different as the client is a web server daemon deluge-web that connects to a running deluged.

  1. Install deluge-web and run it:
deluge-web

Note: To run it in the background as a daemon, use --fork option. You may also want to set it up as a service.

In your web browser, enter the url below where is the IP address of the server:

http://<server>:8112
  • Default password is: deluge

Congratulations! You can now access deluge on the server via the Web UI.

Create SSH Tunnel

From Deluge 1.2 onward, all communication between the GTK UI and daemon is encrypted using a automatically generated self-signed certificate so SSH tunneling is not a requirement if you are on a trusted local network. If you access the daemon over the internet, you should still use a SSH tunnel.

In a Terminal, enter the following, replacing <server> with the public IP of your server.

ssh -fNL 127.0.0.2:58846:localhost:58846 <server>

Note: We use 127.0.0.2 instead of localhost so that Deluge client knows that we are connecting to a remote daemon. Otherwise you will encounter problems with file browsing as it will assume to be on local client machine rather than remote server.

If you get the error 'bind: Can't assign requested address', you need to add 127.0.0.2 as an alias for the loopback device:

sudo ifconfig lo0 add 127.0.0.2