Auto Seedbox

Scripts to watch macOS ~/Downloads folder for .torrent files, upload them to a seedbox, and download the resulting files.

Also has ability to automatically SCP .epub files to an online Kindle running KOReader.

Why?

1. To be a good citizen, and seed your torrents
2. To remove the hassle of having to keep your laptop cracked open to do so
3. To prevent snooping on your torrent downloads by your ISP
4. To make downloading torrents as easy as any other file
5. For books, to reduce the activation energy to reading as much as possible

Requirements

• macOS computer with Homebrew installed

• Seedbox with SFTP access

  • Must be able to put SSH key on machine (This is doable with only sftp and no SSH access.)

  • Must be running qBittorrent (Probably can make it work otherwise, but this is what I chose.)

  • This could be local, cloud self-run, or managed

Setup

This requires some manual configuration to work. I haven't tested this on setups that are not my own. If this doesn't work for you, please file an issue.

Set up public key authentication

1. Generate SSH key: ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -f ~/.ssh/id_seedbox

   • Use a password manager to generate a secure passphrase. Save it.

2. Add key to SSH agent ssh-add --apple-use-keychain ~/.ssh/id_seedbox

   • This may fail. If so, either brew unlink openssh or call /usr/bin/ssh-add instead. Homebrew's SSH doesn't work with the macOS keychain, which we need if we want to password-protect the key and be able to automate this.

3. Write to your ~/.ssh/config, filling in the values:

    Host seedbox
        HostName <HOSTNAME>
        User <USERNAME>
        Port <PORT>
        IdentityFile ~/.ssh/id_seedbox
   

   This isn't necessary (the script generates its own config), but it's a solid quality-of-life improvement.

4. Add the public key to your seedbox. See here for instructions.

   • If you don't have SSH access, this can still be done over SFTP. It will look something like this:

     $ cd ~/
     $ sftp -P <PORT> <USERNAME>@<HOSTNAME>
     # This may be unnecessary if the directory already exists
     sftp> pwd
     Remote working directory: /home/<USERNAME>
     # If the above is not the home directory, cd into it.
     sftp> mkdir .ssh
     sftp> put .ssh/id_seedbox.pub .ssh/authorized_keys
     sftp> chmod 700 .ssh
     sftp> chmod 600 .ssh/authorized_keys

5. Restart the seedbox.

6. Run sftp seedbox. This should sign you in without needing a password.

• If this fails, try ssh-add --apple-load-keychain
• Confirm you restarted the seedbox

Set up qBittorrent

1. Make watch directories:

$ sftp seedbox
sftp> pwd
Remote working directory: /home/<USERNAME>
sftp> mkdir twatch
sftp> mkdir twatch_out
sftp> mkdir completed_torrents

1. Sign in to the web UI for qBittorrent

2. Go to Tools > Options

3. Check "Copy .torrent files for finished downloads to:" and set the value to /home/<USERNAME>/completed_torrents

4. Under "Automatically add torrents from:" add a line with "Monitored Folder" being /home/<USERNAME>/twatch and "Override Save Location" being /home/<USERNAME>/twatch_out/

5. Scroll to the bottom and click "save"

6. Test this by sftping into the server, and copying a .torrent file to /home/<USERNAME>/twatch. Wait for it to complete by watching the web UI, and then check that there is a .torrent file for the download in /home/<USERNAME>/completed_torrents, and the actual files are in /home/<USERNAME>/twatch_out.

Install auto-seedbox

1. Install Homebrew if you haven't already.

2. Install this repo:

   brew tap riley-martine/auto-seedbox
   brew install auto-seedbox

3. Set up your config in ~/.config/auto-seedbox/config.json. All fields are required. It should look like this:

   {
       "seedbox_user": "root",
       "seedbox_host": "website.address",
       "seedbox_port": "7777",
       "seedbox_key": "~/.ssh/id_seedbox",
       "send_to_kindle": true
   }

4. Run brew services start auto-seedbox.

5. To test this is working, tail -50 -f /opt/homebrew/var/log/auto-seedbox.log. Add a torrent file to ~/Downloads, and watch the logs as it downloads.

At this point, you're probably done! Congratulations! However, if you're also trying to get your ebooks onto a Kindle, read on...

(Optional) Set up Kindle

Note: This probably works with non-Kindle KOReader, but I haven't tried it.

1. Jailbreak your Kindle. Follow ALL instructions in the thread carefully. Do not connect to the internet. This may take a while, but do it right.

2. Install KUAL, gawk, KUAL+, KUAL Helper. See linked snapshots thread.

3. Install KOReader

4. Disable OTA updates through KUAL

   1. If running FW >= 5.12.x, you MUST also disable OTA updates with method described here. You can do this through KOReader's shell in Top Menu > Tools Icon > More Tools > Terminal emulator > Open terminal session. Here is what I ran (the hosts stuff is a bit extra, but sue me I guess, I was working on this too long to get got by an update):

      # mntroot rw
      # cd /usr/bin
      # mv otaupd otaupd.bck
      # mv otav3 otav3.bck
      # echo "/bin/true" > /usr/bin/otav3
      # echo "/bin/true" > /usr/bin/otaupd
      # chmod +x /usr/bin/otav3 /usr/bin/otaupd
      # echo "127.0.0.1 firs-ta.g7g.amazon.com" >> /etc/hosts
      # echo "127.0.0.1 amazon.com" >> /etc/hosts
      # touch /var/local/system/DONT_DELETE_CONTENT_ON_DEREGISTRATION
      # exit

      And then reboot the device.

5. Connect the device to WiFi. Pray you got everything right.

6. Launch KOReader. Go to Top Menu > Gear Icon > SSH server. Set the field "SSH port" to 2323. Enable "Login without password (DANGEROUS)". I was unable to make public key auth work, but I'll only be connecting to home WiFi, so I think it's probably fine. Check the box for "SSH server." This will tell you the IP address of the device.

7. Test ssh access with ssh -p 2323 root@<IP> and just hit enter for the password. You should be logged in to the Kindle.

8. You may need to change the download path in auto_kindle/copy_to_kindle.sh, on the line where it runs scp. This should be KOReader's home folder, where you want the books to go. Add a file to your Kindle in the directory you want (I used /mnt/us/documents because that's where Calibre was putting things) and run # ls /../../../mnt/us/documents/ to confirm you see your file; if not, correct the path and edit it in copy_to_kindle.sh.

9. Test ./copy_to_kindle.sh ~/Downloads/example.epub. It may be slow the first time as it finds the Kindle. This should copy a file to the Kindle.

10. Test the whole thing together. Find a torrent that has an epub in it, download it, and watch the logs (tail -f /opt/homebrew/var/log/auto-seedbox.log). If your Kindle is online, everything should work.

Developing

brew install --verbose --debug --HEAD ./Formula/auto-seedbox.rb
brew services restart auto-seedbox
tail -50 -f /opt/homebrew/var/log/auto-seedbox.log