Install Transmission on ASUS Router

WebBanshee — Fri, 05 Apr 2019 15:39:27 +0000

Hello folks, after I flashed the firmware on my RT-AC87U to Asuswrt-Merlin and installed Entware the next step was to install Transmission.

To install Transmission takes just a few minutes and is well documented on Entware’s GitHub site. Further down I focus on the settings you can change in the configuration.

Install Transmission:

opkg install transmission-web transmission-daemon-openssl transmission-remote-openssl

Connect to your router via SSH and stop the Transmission daemon :

/opt/etc/init.d/S88transmission stop

It is important to stop the Transmission daemon before editing the configuration settings in the settings file. Otherwise, your changes will be overwritten by the default settings you have in place.

Determine your mount label which you will need to specify the dir paths:

ls -l /tmp/mnt

Edit the Transmission Config File under /opt/etc/transmission/settings.json :

To edit the settings file I usually connect with WinSCP to the router and use the integrated WinSCP editor. Of course, you can use Nano or other tools as well.

I have changed the following lines:

“cache-size-mb”: 2,
“download-dir”: “/tmp/mnt/LABELNAME/DownloadDir“,
“incomplete-dir”: “/tmp/mnt/Main/LABELNAME/IncompleteDownloadDir“,
“peer-limit-global”: 40,
“peer-limit-per-torrent”: 10,
“rpc-authentication-required”: true,
“rpc-enabled”: true,
“rpc-password”: “PASSWORD“,
“rpc-username”: “USERNAME“,

Here are some notes to the lines above:

“cache-size-mb”: This is the cache size for each peer ( ! ). If you have a peer-limit-per-torrent of 10 and cache-size-mb set to 2 the cache size will be 20 MB per torrent. Take this in account when you configure the cache-size-mb. Ideally, the cache size should be within your available memory, otherwise the cache will be written to the disk of your USB storage which will slow down the download speed.

“peer-limit-per-torrent”: This is the second parameter you can modify to optimize download speeds. If you get fast peers and you lower this limit you could increase the cache-size-mb to download bigger chunks which increases the download speed.

“peer-limit-global”: Specifies the over all peer limit. If you have 6 torrents with peer-limit-per-torrent set to 10 and peer-limit-global set to 40 the peers will max out at a number of 40 and will not reach 60 peers ( 10 peers per torrent ).

“download-dir”: ” Specify the path where your downloads should go to. This is why you need to know your LABELNAME stated in Step 3. Syntax : /tmp/mnt/LABLENAME/YourDownloadFolder

“rpc-enabled”: Enables the Transmission WebGui

“rpc-password”: Set the password to the WebGui. After you save the settings file and start the Transmission daemon the pw will be stored as hashcode ( no plaintext )

“rpc-username” : Set the username for the WebGui login. Can be different from your router admin password.

You can find a list of further Transmission parameters here: Transmission Config

Open Transmission port on your router:

Downloads without opening the Transmission port ( default is 51413 ) were fast and I didn’t experience any problems. When it came to seeding upload speeds were only in kilobyte ranges. Checking the Transmission port showed the port was closed.

Permanently open the Transmission port:

I followed the steps from the Tranmission GitHub site.

Create a script in /jffs/scripts/ using Nano or WinSCP.
Name the script firewall-start.
If you already have a firewall-start script just insert the lines below and omit the first line.
Using Nano: nano -w /jffs/scripts/firewall-start
Find Nano basics here.

Insert these lines into the firewall-start script:

#!/bin/sh

iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --destination-port 51413 -j ACCEPT

iptables -I INPUT -p udp --destination-port 51413 -j ACCEPT

Make the script executable:

chmod a+rx /jffs/scripts/firewall-start

Start the script manually: ( the script will autom. start when the router reboots )

/jffs/scripts/firewall-start

The port is open now:

Start the Transmission daemon:

/opt/etc/init.d/S88transmission start

This is how I managed to install Transmission and have configured it for my needs.
You can find further useful information on the Entware GitHub page

Happy downloading!

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Install Transmission on ASUS Router