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I've recently come across the problem of having to share several large files with multiple individuals (data collected from experiments, nothing shady). Distribution through torrent seems the best way, especially since several computers are rather close (on a university network) and can download quickly and then pool upload bandwidth for people outside the network.

However, placing these files on a public tracker is not preferable. Are there any (preferably free) trackers that allow registering a torrent, but not making it public? It doesn't need to be super secure.Behavior like youtube or google docs, where those with a link can easily access the torrent, but those without it will have no way of finding it would be enough.

I would prefer not to host my own tracker service on a server (university is a little sketchy around torrents - even legitimate ones).

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  • 3
    I love your timing.
    – Daniel Beck ♦
    Sep 9, 2011 at 17:55
  • Lol, yeah, I usually just go with scp, but this kind of needs to spread to a lot of people at once and I'd rather not give everyone a user account on my host.
    – crasic
    Sep 9, 2011 at 17:58

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OpenBitTorrent and PublicBT, as well as udp://tracker.ccc.de:80, are public trackers that do not have any sort of search functionality beyond retrieving data by the .torrent infohash.

You don't need a tracker, though – trackerless torrents exist, using only DHT/LPD.

The "drag-and-drop share" feature in µTorrent 3 uses DHT, OpenBitTorrent and PublicBT.

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If there are not many individuals who need these files then you do not necessarily need a tracker. Especially if there would be at least one persistent (24/7) peer with a fixed IP address in the "swarm".

Most BitTorrent clients support adding a peer to connect to. Simply set up one peer with a fixed IP which would be connectable, then distribute the torrent and the IP:port of the peer. Enable Peer Exchange (PEX) in the endpoints and the fixed peer will disseminate the other peers over PEX to new peers requesting data.

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