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Daemon Mode

Daemon Mode lets you harness the full power of cross-seed, by:

  • instantly searching for cross-seeds for finished downloads
  • watching for new releases:
    • scanning RSS feeds periodically
    • listening for new release announces and snatching them if you already have the data
  • Running batch searches on your full collection of torrents periodically
tip

In theory, after you run a full-collection search for the first time, just the first 2 features should be able to find all cross-seeds as soon as possible. However there are applications for the third feature as well. If improvements in the matching algorithm are made to cross-seed, or your daemon is down for an amount of time, running searches very infrequently will find cross-seeds which fell through the cracks.

In this doc, we'll go through strategies to run the daemon continuously and start automatically on reboot, ways to trigger searches for torrents that just finished downloading, and ways to watch for new releases.

danger

cross-seed does not have API auth. Do not expose its port to the internet.

Running the daemon continuously​

The easiest way to run the daemon is just to leave a terminal open after running the following command:

cross-seed daemon

However, that's not very sustainable.

  • If you run cross-seed on a server that you use ssh to log into, then cross-seed will stop whenever your ssh session closes.
  • If the server restarts, then you'll have to start cross-seed manually.

Below are a few ways you can set up cross-seed daemon to run on its own:

Docker​

You can use Docker Compose. Create or open your existing docker-compose.yml file and add the cross-seed service:

version: "2.1"
services:
    cross-seed:
        image: crossseed/cross-seed
        container_name: cross-seed
        user: 1000:1000 # optional but recommended
        ports:
            - "2468:2468" # you'll need this if your torrent client runs outside of Docker
        volumes:
            - /path/to/config/folder:/config
            - /path/to/rtorrent_sess:/torrents:ro # note that this volume can and should be mounted read-only
            - /path/to/output/folder:/output
        command: daemon # this enables the daemon
        restart: unless-stopped

After that, you can use the following commands to control it:

docker-compose pull # Update the container to the latest version of cross-seed
docker-compose up -d # Create/start the container
docker start cross-seed # Start the daemon
docker stop cross-seed # Stop the daemon
docker restart cross-seed # Restart the daemon
docker logs cross-seed # view the logs

systemd (Linux)​

If you want to use systemd to run cross-seed daemon continuously, you can create a unit file in /etc/systemd/system.

touch /etc/systemd/system/cross-seed.service

Open the file in your favorite editor, and paste the following code in. You'll want to customize the following variables:

  • {user}: your user, or another user if you want to create a separate user for cross-seed
  • {group}: your group, or another group if you want to create a separate group for cross-seed
  • /path/to/node: run the command which node in your terminal, then paste the output here.
[Unit]
Description=cross-seed daemon
[Service]
User={user}
Group={group}
Restart=always
Type=simple
ExecStart=/path/to/node cross-seed daemon
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

After installing the unit file, you can use these commands to control the daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload # tell systemd to reindex to discover the unit file you just created
sudo systemctl enable cross-seed # enable it to run on restart
sudo systemctl start cross-seed # start the service
sudo systemctl stop cross-seed # stop the service
sudo systemctl restart cross-seed # restart the service
sudo journalctl -u cross-seed # view the logs

screen​

screen is a terminal multiplexer.

A Terminal multiplexer is a program that can be used to multiplex login sessions inside the Terminal. This allows users to have multiple sessions inside a single Terminal window. One of the important features of the Terminal multiplexer is that users can attach and detach these sessions.

Source: https://linuxhint.com/tmux_vs_screen/

Running a long-lived cross-seed daemon process in screen is very easy.

screen -S cross-seed -d -m cross-seed daemon

The above command will start a screen instance named cross-seed in detached mode, running the cross-seed daemon command at launch.

To attach to the screen, run the following command:

screen -r cross-seed

Once attached, you can detach with ctrl-A, D.

Set up automatic searches for finished downloads​

The most powerful feature of Daemon Mode is the ability to search for cross-seeds as soon as a torrent finishes downloading. However, it requires some manual setup.

rTorrent​

For rTorrent, you'll have to edit your .rtorrent.rc file.

  1. cd to the directory where .rtorrent.rc lives.

  2. Create a file called rtorrent-cross-seed.sh. It should contain the following contents:

    #!/bin/sh
    curl -XPOST http://localhost:2468/api/webhook --data-urlencode "name=$1"
Docker users

You can use http://cross-seed:2468 instead of http://localhost:2468 with Docker networks.

  1. Run the following command (this will give rTorrent permission to execute your script):

    chmod +x rtorrent-cross-seed.sh

  2. Run the following command (this will tell rTorrent to execute your script :

    echo 'method.set_key=event.download.finished,cross_seed,"execute={'`pwd`/rtorrent-cross-seed.sh',$d.name=}"' >> .rtorrent.rc

qBittorrent​

  1. In the qBittorrent Web UI, navigate to Tools > Options > Downloads.
  2. Check the Run external program on torrent completion box and enter the following in the box:
    curl -XPOST http://localhost:2468/api/webhook --data-urlencode "name=%N"
tip

If you are already using the Run external program on torrent completion box, you can separate the two commands with a semicolon:

    oldcommand %N; curl -XPOST http://localhost:2468/api/webhook --data-urlencode "name=%N"

Transmission​

  1. cd to the directory where settings.json lives.

  2. Create a file called transmission-cross-seed.sh. It should contain the following contents:

    #!/bin/sh
    curl -XPOST http://localhost:2468/api/webhook --data-urlencode "infoHash=$TR_TORRENT_HASH"
Docker users

You can use http://cross-seed:2468 instead of http://localhost:2468 with Docker networks.

  1. Run the following command (this will give Transmission permission to execute your script):

    chmod +x transmission-cross-seed.sh

  2. In the settings of Transmission: call script when download completes: sh ./transmission-cross-seed.sh

Set up RSS​

Setting up RSS is very easy. Just open your config file, and set the rssCadence option. I recommend 10 minutes:

rssCadence: "10 minutes",

Set up periodic searches​

Setting up periodic searches is very easy. Just open your config file, and set the searchCadence option. I recommend 26 weeks (biannual):

searchCadence: "26 weeks",

You can also combine searchCadence with excludeRecentSearch and run it more frequently for a smoother load:

searchCadence: "1 week",
excludeRecentSearch: "26 weeks",