500 error with remotely called php

[Lothar]

Hi all,

At the moment I'm trying to setup a bittorrent tracker, so that subscribers to a piece of software I am writing can get the distribution of it really easily when it's released without hammering the bandwidth on my server. I'm using the bitgrog tracker software (http://www.rumandwater.com/bitgrog) and so far I've managed to get everythign working exactly right, down to mysql access and torrent uploading, except for one little glitch.

When you download the torrent file and load it in your client version of bittorrent, it throws a 500 server error. According to the logs the following is occuring:

[Tue Mar 23 02:07:47 2004] [error] [client 210.11.215.4] Premature end of script headers: /www/y/e/yeggs.net/htdocs/bt/announce

The only thing I can think of as the file is not a known file type to php is that it's not being called properly by the php cgi. However, there is a section in the .htaccess which should fix this, namely:

<Files ~ "^(announce)|(scrape)$">
ForceType application/x-httpd-php
</Files>

- FYI yeggs.net/bt/announce and yeggs.net/bt/scrape are the two php files that control the torrent files once a client loads them. For some reason this line is not working correctly in making the files run like php.

I have also already checked all my chmods and they seem to be correct, in accordance with the readme of the tracker itself. I'm out of ideas, can anyone help?

Edit: Also as an additional note I think I have reasoned that for powwebs cgi type of php, the above mime type (application/x-httpd-php) may not be correct - if this is the case can someone point me in the direction of the correct mime type for getting a non .php extensioned file to act like one?

[alphadesk]

Hi Lothar

powweb admin has expressed that "bittorrant tracker" may not be welcome here.

http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=28469&highlight=bittorrent+tracker

So you may be waisting your time.

After reading the thread you can get with support and see if this is still their position.

[Lothar]

Thanks Alphadesk.

Although I cannot post directly on that topic due to it being closed, this type of tracker I am running is completely private - not only is it already protected via htaccess and htpasswd already, but it will be used for a legit reason that doesn't involve p2p copyrighted material.

Also, this type of tracker script that I am attempting to install doesn't require a particular port other than port 80 - it is a modified script based on the original tracker code from bitconjuror.org and runs through the http port. The only requirements the server needs is php, mysql, and cron, all of which are already available by powweb.

I do appreciate the position of powweb on this matter however, and if it is finally stated (the thread you linked is not completely clear since it was reopened for some reason then reclosed) that bt is not allowed in any way I will remove it from the server.

For the meantime is there any idea why it's not working? :D

Edit: Also as a further note, software company Blizzard Entertainment are currently using the bittorrent protocol to distribute their beta of their upcoming game, World of Warcraft. If the protocol could only be used for piracy, then I doubt a large software corporation such as Blizzard/Vivendi would put it to use for their own purposes.

[alphadesk]

No ... but here's another thread you may want to read.

http://forum.powweb.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=33510&highlight=bittorrent+tracker

[Lothar]

Well ok, fair enough. :)

[stilesja]

I have just read all these threads about bit torrent and I think there is some confusion on the powweb side and on the users side about what it is and what it is not so I just thought I would clear things up.

1) To Powweb: Running a tracker does not "connect" you to every other bit torrent network out there. You control what torrents your tracker keeps track of. If I started a tracker on my powweb side you could not connect to it and find anything about where to find torrents tracked by some other site. Content is not "ON" bittorrent. It is distributed using bit torrent. This is analagous to saying to your webserver "Hey I want this web page, but don't bother sending it to me, just tell me who else is downloading it right now and I'll get it from them" and it would say "ok". If you said to your webserver "Hey I want the latest episode of "Lost" from that tracker over on torrent spy" It would say "What the hell are you talking about, I only know about things on this server". This is why hosting your own tracker is not a security/liability risk for you. If there is illegal content tracked by a tracker run on a powweb users tracker, it was put there by that user the same as if they put it on their FTP site. They are responsible for it and its contents. You shut them down the same as you shut down a violating FTP site.


2) To Users: Bit torrent is cool, I agree. I download all my linux distributions with it. But do you really think whatever it is you want to publish with bit torrent will be popular enough to make it work? Understand this, bit torrent relies on the upstream bandwidth of other people downloading the same file AT THE SAME TIME as you to send you the file. You have a 3megabit cable modem. To max that out you will need 12 people with 256kbs upstream sending you the same file at the same time to reach your full capacity, but those people will be sending filese to others as well. Ideally you 50+ people at any given time downloading a file to take advantage of the Torrent concept. I am guess that your home movies are just not that popular. If you are getting that kind of traffic I doubt you are hosting with powweb.

To summarize to Powweb: Bit torrent is a protocal which behaves much the same way as an http download. The author has to post and link to the content via a website for anyone to find it. There is zero chance of unauthorized content being tracked by your tracker if you require authorization on your tracker. Open Source software was distributed using bit torrent before the warez'ers figured out how great it was and OSS continues to be a substantial legitimate source of bit torrent traffic.

To summarize to users: 99% of you don't have anything near popular enough to use bit torrent to distribute it. Use that great bandwidth alotment that powweb gives you and take heart in the fact that if someday you create something so popular you need bit torrent, you can host it through an open source tracker allready available for such things.


To summarize to both: Powweb users don't need trackers no matter how cool it would be. Powweb administrators need to stop dissing bit torrent until the understand it better. (at which point they would not diss it anyway)