Sophie: ctorrent-3.3.2-1mdv2010.0 i586

ctorrent-3.3.2-1mdv2010.0.i586.rpm

Enhanced CTorrent Change Log
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh3.3.2" Release

* [1954631] Fixed incorrect ordering of dictionary keys in created
torrent metainfo file.
* Remove unneeded buffer allocation in bencode_buf.
* Insure appropriate file can be closed if needed.
* Fix double-cancel in StopDownload.
* Incorrectly set not_interested state in RequestPiece when it
should set m_standby, as there are still outstanding requests.
* Corrected a problem in choke oscillation handling.
* Avoid re-requesting the most recently requested piece from a peer,
to reduce choke oscillation impact.
* Set multpeer on choke oscillation, to accept the affected piece.
* Don't print file completion details with -c if no files existed.
* Set errno in low-level btfiles functions to facilitate better
error messages.
* Set ENOMEM on alloc failure in truncate routine
* Corrected some CTCS error handling, which could produce an
odd/incorrect message about sending the torrent.
* Fix CTCS/Console recursion loop triggered by a network problem,
eventually blowing out the stack.
* Remove the .bf file when -c is used. This prevents an old bitfield
state hanging around if the torrent is found to be complete.
* Indicate when a file is being created, even when trying to use
sparse files.
* Don't print file completion details when no data is present.
* Buffer was not freed when using -a (memory waste).
* Additional "now" time updates to correct timing flaws. Too many
disk accesses could be performed because the time was not being
updated between operations.
* Fix request URL encoding for non-ASCII locales.
* Cache management bug due to expiration during I/O. This could
manifest as a bad hash check or incomplete piece after download.
* Correction in cache aging of a piece.
* Console is unresponsive when downloading slowly (IsIdle problem).
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh3.3.1" Release

Bug Fixes
* [1941536] Fix restoration of terminal mode at exit.
* Handle errors from select(). (Could cause high CPU utilization and
unresponsiveness.)
* [1946210] Fix incorrect string allocation sizes. (Could cause
memory corruption or double-free errors.)
* Delete file I/O buffers at exit.
* Fix build warning from bitfield.cpp.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh3.3" Release

Features and Performance
* Faster restart: Download of pieces that are known to be missing
can begin immediately.
* Added a workaround for the current lack of announce-list (multiple
trackers) support. If the torrent file contains an announce-list,
up to 9 alternate announce URLs (trackers) will be listed in the
torrent information. The -u option can be used to specify the
announce URL, either by number from the list of alternates or
directly as a string.
* Allow -X in conjunction with -c (for automated completion check).
* SO_REUSEADDR is now used when -p is specified, so that the client
can restart immediately on the given port.
* Daemon mode (-d) now closes the standard file descriptors and
reopens them to /dev/null. This complies with most people's
expectations of a daemon. If -d is specified twice, standard I/O
descriptors which are not a terminal (i.e. which have been
redirected) are kept intact as was the previous behavior. This
allows a fully detached process from which output can be captured.
* Add tracker update & restart actions (from CTCS) to operator menu.
* When creating a torrent, the following new options are available:
-p Private (disable peer exchange)
-c comment Include a comment/description
Note that -t must now be the first option given when creating a
torrent.
* A new option -I allows specifying the public IP address which the
tracker should distribute to peers.
* Enabled changing CTCS server from CTCS.
* When changing bandwidth limits from the console, remind the user
that CTCS may override changes.
* It is now possible to stop using CTCS from the console. Use the
"S" option and give a single colon (:) as the input.
* The "private", "comment", and "created by" fields are now
recognized and printed (if present) when the torrent meta info is
shown.
* Improved on-screen advisement regarding bit field file at startup.
* Tracker reporting data has been added to the detailed status, as
well as failed hashes, duplicate blocks, and unwanted blocks
counts.
* CPU usage is printed to Verbose output when Detailed Status is
requested from operator menu.
* Input is now turned off if not needed. This makes things behave
better if, for example, -x is used and the output piped to less.
* Attempt to avoid wrapping/scrolling when printing the status line
on a narrow terminal/window.
* A couple of optimizations analyzing peer bitfields.
* Bitfield operation optimizations.
* Efficiency improvement in PendingQueue functions.
* Improved GetDownloads efficiency.
* Reduced memory usage when seeding, download is stalled, or using
-x.
* Rate measurement calculations are now cached and recomputed only
when necessary.
* Improved methods of determining local IP address.
* The "ip" field is sent in the tracker address if the public IP
address was determined.
* Reduction of download duplication and improvement of tracker
reporting
+ Improved piece reassignment.
o Reassign only if proposer's queue is empty.
o Consider any piece in the slower peer's queue.
o Improve download rate comparison method.
o Allow reassignment in endgame mode.
+ Improved data counting and reporting.
+ Hash check failure handling improvement
o If hash check fails, don't re-request the same piece
from that peer.
o Increased weight of hash failure.
o Reduced peer error threshold.
+ Improved randomness of CopyShuffle.
+ Reduce duplicate data receipt
o Avoid duplication to high-latency/slow peers.
o When duplicating or reassigning requests, move immediate
incoming slices to the end of the queue.
+ Accept cancelled data from a peer if still needed.
+ Duplicate request management
o Spread request duplication more evenly among outstanding
pieces.
o Limit duplicate requests for a piece to the number of
outstanding slices.
o Track the number of pieces requested as duplicates.
o Track pieces for which slices have been requested or
received from multiple peers.
+ Detect a duplication inconsistency in Pending.
+ Improve choke oscillation detection and handling.
+ HealthCheck improvement to reduce redundant receipts from
high latency peers.
* Support systems that do not provide random(3).

Bug Fixes
* Completed torrent could be reported as incomplete when restarting.
This was the reported/observed symptom; potentially it could also
be seen as failed hash-check of downloaded pieces or uploading of
bad data (failed hash-check at a remote peer).
* Fixed crash which could happen when sending data without an upload
limit.
* Surplus bits in the last byte of a bitfield could be set.
* Don't say "stalled" if still checking and nothing to download yet.
* Don't allow the -n or -X options (from CTCS and console) if
download is already complete.
* Correct handling if -s is used with a single-file torrent and a
directory of the specified name exists.
* Exit with error if tracker setup fails.
* Don't print an error when a known but inactive configuration
option is received from CTCS.
* Check for bad/invalid input from CTCS.
* Fixed a bug that could corrupt (loop) the peer list, resulting in
a hard-loop (nonresponsiveness).
* Exit (with error) after discovering that a file is not the correct
size at startup.
* Fixed a bug with input prompting (affects CTCS password entry).
* [1886549] Fix torrent creation with files over 4GB.
* Improved CTCS status updating, and accuracy for end-of-download
and terminating cases.
* Upload/download now stops upon initiating Quit.
* Improved cache allocation when download stalls or unstalls.
* [1863204] Skip I/O for zero-length files.
* Condition reversal in counting hash-check error against a peer.

Code Cleanup
* Removed declaration of unused variable cfg_max_bandwidth.
* Rearrangement of some bitfield functions & declarations.
* Consolidate peer error counting and handling into PeerError.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh3.2" Release

Features and Performance
* Various code optimizations in cache searching and management.
* Added proactive flushing of the oldest cache entry during idle
time when the cache is full.
* Flush the cache in piece order if/when the entire cache is
flushed.
* Prefetch uncached slices when a downloading piece is nearly
complete.
* Try to reduce thrashing if a small cache is specified.
* Flushing completed pieces to disk is now given a higher priority
than hash-checking existing pieces.
* An informational warning is given if any filenames contain
non-printable characters and the -T option is not used.
* Added more methods of detecting connections from the client to
itself.
* If the tracker doesn't supply a peer count, count the peers it
gives for connection instead. (This can be off by 1 if you're
using NAT and a lame tracker gives you yourself as a peer, but you
can't connect.)
* Don't let initial hash-checking prevent checking tracker, ctcs,
and console.
* Improved efficiency of peer status/prefetch checking.
* A 16K (default slice size) file I/O buffer is now used to
potentially improve read/write performance.
* Added support for systems without the strncasecmp() library
function.

Bug Fixes
* Fixed a crash at program exit.
* Fixed an error when reading an empty file.
* Fixed a potential cache corruption issue.
* Bad piece data wasn't always removed from cache.
* Updated builtin SHA1 code to include a fix or two and take
advantage of autoconf (including endianness; cross-compilers take
note).
* Improved/corrected the method of determining the local IP address.
* Corrected the comparison of local and peer IP address.
* Corrected peer connection failure detection (could cause peer
disconnects).
* Corrected a potential problem in the peer handshake handling code.
* Corrected a problem that could prevent or delay receiving the
peer's bitfield.
* Fixed a problem with handling of tracker response data. Now
separate send and receive buffers are used for tracker
communication.
* Corrected end-of-header check in httpencode.cpp (tracker
response).
* Various timing-related fixes to improve maximum transfer rates.
* Avoid running too many idle-time tasks at a time.
* Improved the upload timing when not using cache.
* Adjusted the CTCS seed time (-e) option processing to make the
result more intuitive (it could be perceived as being an hour
off).
* Fixed a problem where the torrent metainfo would not be shown if
input was redirected. Also added input EOF/error detection for
cases not previously covered.
* Fix console input on Solaris (and potentially some other
platforms).

Code Cleanup
* Additional verbose output for cache management.
* Moved strnstr() from httpencode.cpp to compat.c.
* Improve handling of tracker contact intervals.
* Optimized PeekMessage function.
* Removed unnecessary headers from downloader.cpp.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh3.1" Release

Features and Performance
* Cached completed pieces are flushed to disk during idle time
rather than immediately.
* When the cache is full, a single entry is now flushed to make room
for new data rather than flushing the entire cache.
* Management of open files has been enabled in order to reduce the
number of active file descriptors needed for large torrents.
Detection and reporting of related errors is also improved.
* Files are now opened in read-only mode when seeding.
* The client will not connect to the tracker when quitting if it has
not successfully made contact before.
* A new command line option "-T" substitutes a hex representation of
any non-printable characters in filenames; an underscore will be
inserted between any such sequences and regular text. This applies
to printing the name of the file as well as accessing it on disk,
so you need to use it (or not) consistently across multiple runs
of the same torrent. It does not apply to names specified with the
-s option.
* A new command line option "-X" specifies a "user exit" command to
run upon download completion. The string parameter will be passed
to the sh shell for execution; see the system() man page for
further clarification. You will need to quote this string on the
command line in order to identify it as a single parameter and
prevent special characters from being interpreted. Some
substitution sequences beginning with ampersand (&) are available;
note that it's a good idea to quote the sequence within the string
so that the substituted names will be quoted in the final command.
+ "&d" will be replaced by the name of the directory or
filename that contains the downloaded data.
+ "&t" will be replaced by the name of the torrent metainfo
file (with path, if it was specified that way to ctorrent).
+ "&w" will be replaced by the client's working directory.
Note that the fork() and system() system/library functions are
used for best portability. As a result, significant extra memory
may be used while the specified command is running. Be advised to
use this feature as a trigger mechanism to update a file or run a
short script that kicks off a background task rather than for
executing a longer task directly.
* A new command line option "-d" specifies "daemon mode". The client
will detach itself from the terminal session and become a
background process. This option is also available from the
operator menu.
* Prefetch and total sent counts are reported with the cache stats
in verbose mode. Note that these stats are all close
approximations based on the default slice size of 16KB.
* The -n option now accepts a list of files to download in priority
order. Groups of simultaneous files can be specified, and
"resuming normal behavior" after completion is now optional (and
not the default). See the User's Guide for more detailed
information.
* The partial completion indicator ("P:") now shows percentages
rather than number of pieces when using the new status line
format. The download time remaining for the current set is also
shown.
* The CTCS protocol version has been incremented. Please download
the new version of CTCS to take advantage of new features. This
provides support for additional file details and prioritization,
and for auto-configuration of available client configuration
options in CTCS.
* Output channels can now be changed via CTCS.
* The input channel can now be redirected from the operator menu and
CTCS.
* Added "off" as an additional target for input and output channels.
* Added support for systems that do not have snprintf() and/or
vsnprintf().

Bug Fixes
* Fixed a missing maxfd variable initialization in the main loop,
which could cause high CPU utilization. (maxfd patch)
* Detect if the clock_gettime library function is missing and
emulate it. This facilitates building on Mac OSX. (clock_gettime
patch)
* Avoid putting the "key" field into the tracker request twice.
* Tracker redirection is now handled correctly and works.
* Fixed problems with detection and reporting of tracker connection
errors.
* Error reading from disk with -c option is now reported.
* Fixed a looping problem when the torrent begins with a zero-length
file or a file of exactly one piece.
* Fixed the way variable argument lists are handled in the console
code, which could cause crashes. (console patch)
* Fixed a problem flushing downloaded data to disk in certain
situations. (flush patch)
* Remove sockets from the list to check for peers disconnected
during processing.
* Updated fdset handling in peerlist, tracker, and ctcs components
to set appropriate states in all cases.
* Fixed a potential crash when receiving a message from a peer
(after processing it). (msg patch)
* Fixed an issue with rate measurement on NSLU2 devices. This was
due to an apparent compiler bug (unconfirmed but raised to
developers). There are other areas where the same effect can show
itself (with the -E seed ratio option for instance) that cannot be
so easily worked around. (bwrate patch)
* Fixed an issue with null/redirected standard input.
* If the time changes backward by a second, it is disregarded. This
is not really a program bug fix, but a workaround for system clock
glitches (observed on an NSLU2).

Code Cleanup
* Tracker request construction is somewhat consolidated and
simplified.
* Split the FillFDSet function into two functions of distinct roles
and more manageable size.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh3" Release

Important Stuff to Know
* You should always specify an upload bandwidth limit. With the most
recent changes in the program, this "option" is not just a limit
to stay under, but an advisement to the client as well. Enhanced
CTorrent now tunes its upload performance based on the limit.
Without a limit, the client has no idea how much bandwidth your
line can support and so cannot perform this tuning. It is now
possible to achieve better upload rates with a limit than without.
Due to the tit-for-tat nature of bittorrent, this can also
indirectly increase your download performance. If you just want
the client to use as much upload bandwidth as possible, then
choose a limit that is 10% or so less than the available upload
capacity of your line. ("Available" means not typically in use by
other applications.) Note that limits are specified in KB/s
(kilobytes per second), where 1KB = 1024 bytes (8192 bits). Your
ISP likely measures in "kilobits" (Kb, where 1Kb = 1000 bits or
125 bytes) or "megabits" (1Mb = 1000000 bits or 122KB). Some of
that [to the tune of 20% in some cases] is used by the line
protocol and thus not available to you at all.
* The CTCS protocol version has been incremented. If you've written
an application that interfaces with CTorrent via the CTCS
protocol, it should continue to work if you've used protocol level
negotiation (PROTOCOL message). The new changes have been
documented on the CTCS Protocol page.

Features and Performance
* Fast Restart
+ "Background" initial hash verification: Downloading and
uploading will begin while pieces are being verified. Status
will be updated as pieces are checked, and HAVE messages are
sent as valid pieces are found.
+ A bitfield save file is always used. At startup, if a file of
the same name as the torrent file with ".bf" appended is
present, it is read to initialize the piece bitfield. The
file is then deleted, and rewritten upon exit if downloading
has not completed.
+ Pieces that are indicated as already present are verified by
hash check (in the background). If the bitfield file is not
found then all pieces are checked, unless this is the first
time the torrent has been started.
+ The -b option can be used to specify a different bitfield
filename. Difference: The option is generally not needed
since it is now "on" by default. It now does not prevent hash
checking when used.
+ The -f option now forces accuracy of the initial bitfield.
Stated differently, it disables the initial hash checking of
pieces on startup. This option should [still] be used with
caution and is generally not recommended since background
hash checking is now used. If the bitfield file is found at
startup, it is used without verification; otherwise, seed
mode is forced (without hash verification). Difference: The
effect is generalized to apply to incomplete torrents (when a
bitfield file is found) as well as the original behavior of
forcing seed mode (without a bitfield file).
+ To emulate the original initial hash check behavior (avoiding
background checking), use the -c and -f options together.
* Cache Management
+ Automatic cache size: The -C option now specifies the maximum
cache size, with the default remaining 16MB. The actual size
used is determined by the download and upload rates and
timings.
+ The maximum cache size that can be specified is no longer
limited. The maximum size that will be used in any case is
the size of the torrent.
+ Slices to be uploaded are prefetched into the cache during
idle time. This can shave a few milliseconds off the time to
respond to an upload request, and can also help performance
during periods of heavy disk activity. The effectiveness may
be reduced slightly when heavy upload limiting is used (as
uploading patterns become less predictable), but it is also
less critical then.
+ A more efficient cache aging mechanism has been added. This
reduces CPU utilization and helps increase the accuracy of
cache size management.
+ The cache is now indexed by piece to speed up searches and
insertion.
+ Downloaded pieces are flushed to disk upon completion of each
piece.
* Unchoke Tuning
+ The number of unchoked peers will be increased automatically
when the upload bandwidth limit is not being reached and
decreased when there is much contention for upload bandwidth.
This is done to maximize upload bandwidth utilization while
also maximizing the upload rate to each unchoked peer.
+ Unchoke intervals are extended when necessary in order to
insure that each unchoked peer has at least a chance of an
opportunity to download.
+ You must specify an upload bandwidth limit in order to use
these features. Without a limit, the client does not know the
line capacity or available bandwidth. In that case TCP
congestion control (the network protocol) limits the
bandwidth, so the number of active upload streams (unchokes)
is kept low in order to help it work properly when the line
reaches its capacity.
* Console I/O Management
This is really a mostly-transparent enabler for other new current
and future features.
+ Several configuration commands are available while running.
Note that this requires termios, termio, or sgtty support to
work properly; otherwise try pressing Enter after the key. It
should be very rare for a system to not have one of these
facilities.
o Press "h" or "?" for a list of active keys. Inactive
keys will immediately update the status line.
o Some commands prompt for additional input. The client
continues to run while waiting, though the status line
is not updated. An exception is the CTCS password; just
try to be relatively quick about it.
o Commands shown with "+/-" use the "+" and "-" keys to
increment or decrement the value. After pressing the
command key, press "+" and/or "-" repeatedly to adjust
the value. After five presses, the increment is
increased; press the command key again if you wish to
reset it.
+ An Operator Menu allows changing output destinations,
choosing an alternate status line format, and viewing
detailed status information.
+ Presentation of messages between status line updates is
cleaner.
+ A timestamp (raw clock value) is printed on "verbose" output.
* Options
+ Added User-Agent header to the tracker request. A new option
(-A) can be used to change the string that is sent (default
is shown on the help screen). This feature should help with
trackers that try to restrict use to recognized client
programs. You should only need to use the -A option if the
tracker has been set up to allow only specific clients
(almost certainly out of admin ignorance in one way or
another).
+ The -p option now specifies the highest port number to use.
The client will count down from that point looking for an
available port. This mimics the default behavior of counting
down from port 2706.
+ A new command line option ("-a") can be used to preallocate
the files to download. Use this if you are concerned about
file fragmentation or out-of-order block storage. This option
is only effective when initially creating the files and will
cause startup to take longer as each entire file is written
in order to reserve physical disk space. Note that all files
will be created and preallocated even if the "-n" option is
used to download a particular file.
+ Added some option-specific error messages to be displayed
instead of the help/usage screen when invalid values are
given on the command line.
* Peer Handling
+ Peer statistics are maintained if a peer is dropped and later
reconnects. This can influence unchoking, and the data is
visible with CTCS.
+ The client is more discerning about choosing to reconnect to
a lost peer.
+ Peer download rates (the rate at which we download from each
peer) are now measured more precisely. This should produce
more accurate unchoking decisions while downloading.
+ Inactive peers (who are interested but don't request any data
while unchoked) are disconnected when seeding.
+ A newly-interested peer will be unchoked immediately if an
opening is available.
+ Latency measurement is used to avoid counting errors that are
likely due to transmission delays. To help with this, latency
is now also measured when not downloading from a peer. The
error threshold (tolerance) has also been reduced.
+ Don't count piece hash failures during Initial & Endgame
modes, since it is likely that the component slices of a
piece came from multiple peers.
* Other performance improvements
+ Bandwidth limiting is now based on current (most recent)
utilization rather than the past 20-second average. This
should produce smoother loading of the line since we don't
burst above the limit to make up for a recent slow period.
Note that average values are still shown in the status line
(and CTCS) since that is a better representation of the
overall transfer rates.
+ Data transmission and receiving buffers are now much smaller
but are still increased as necessary (and now decreased when
appropriate as well).
+ Some allowance has been made for time to appear to move
backwards, which could happen due to a system glitch,
hardware problem, or clock adjustment. This has not been
extensively tested (and probably won't be) but hadn't been
reported as a problem either.
+ Timings related to bandwidth management and data transfer
have been significantly reworked to allow more precise and
accurate control.
+ Unneeded and bad data is no longer cached and does not cause
additional piece completion checks.
+ Added additional fdset tracking to reduce processing in the
checking and handling loops.
+ Other code optimizations not specifically listed here.
* The Pause functionality is now more useful; it will now stop
transferring torrent data almost immediately but still interact
with peers and the tracker.

Bug Fixes
* Fixed a potential crash when reassigning a piece to a faster peer.
While a serious bug, it would likely only show itself on
memory-contrained systems.
* Fixed reporting of file completion when using -n, and also with
CTCS.
* Ensure that the "completed" event is sent to the tracker during
the next attempt if contacting the tracker is unsuccessful.
* The amount of data transferred since the last update, shown in the
status line, would go berzerk upon becoming a seeder. Some rate
handling code has been cleaned up and tweaked to fix this.
* A piece could be incorrectly reported as complete if an error
occurred reading the piece data for hash verification.

Code Cleanup
* Moved version number into a new m4 file to make patch distribution
easier.
* Changed method of locating and using SSL library and header files
for SHA1 support. See the INSTALLING file for information about
how to override this or give a hint to configure about where to
find the files.
* Added autoconf checks for integer types that may not be defined on
some systems.
* The funny business with cfg_max_slice_size is eliminated since
request slice size is based on user option rather than a fixed
request queue size.
* Moved bandwidth limiting functions from peer.* to peerlist.*
* Relocated and rewrote get_nl and set_nl.
* Replaced hard-coded message component length values with
constants.
* Formatting adjustments.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh2.2" Release

Code Fixes
* Fixed checking of seed ratio (-E option) to allow fractional
values.
* Fixed CTCS interaction when a limit was not specified on the
command line.
* Fixed peer reconnect determination.
* Fixed a request-queue handling error that could cause a crash upon
becoming a seeder.
* Fixed creation of metainfo (torrent) file with multiple
subdirectories.
* Torrent metainfo is now only printed twice if hash-checking is
performed.

Operational Enhancements
* Errors flushing the cache are now handled more gracefully. (This
happens when the disk is full.)
* Added additional seeder detection criteria.
* Cleaned up parts of the help screen.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh2.1" Release

Code Fixes
* Fixed interaction with CTCS under Linux, resulting in "Operation
now in progress" errors.
* Fixed a flaw in optimistic unchoke logic implementation.
* Fixed problem with return value in _btf_ftruncate() related to my
update for the vfat issue [btfiles patch].
* Fixed handling of 301/302 redirect response from the tracker.

Operational Enhancements
* Attempt to reconnect to successful peers that disconnect
unexpectedly, if possible.
* Changed the unchoke choice algorithm when seeding. The new method
is based on page 4 of the paper "Rarest First and Choke Algorithms
Are Enough" by Arnaud Legout et al. An exception is that CTorrent
chooses new unchokes using its original method (based on wait
time) rather than randomly.
See [1]the paper for details.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh2" Release

Patches
* The following patches or their functionality are incorporated:
1380164 [dnh1.2]
1357832 [invert] (included in dnh1.2)
1352866 [dnh1.1]
1266767 [passkey2]
1239547 [dnh1]
1170457 [standalone-sha1] Added as a fallback case in configure if
OpenSSL is not found. To force it to be used, define
USE_STANDALONE_SHA1 in config.h (after running configure).
1164454 [ip]
1119610 [vfat] This bug appears to be linux-specific; I've tried
to handle it in a more general way that may apply to similar
situations on other platforms and filesystems, but I have limited
capability to test this.
1067196 [lfs] This is the large-file support that many have asked
for.

Optimization
* Use fewer calls to random() by shifting the previously unused
bits.
* Time() calls have been greatly reduced; a global timestamp
variable "now" is set once per main loop iteration and referenced
in functions that need a timestamp (except the caching I/O
routines which were left alone).
* Overall current bandwidth rates are now computed only once per
main loop and referenced in any routines that evaluate or control
bandwidth.
* Avoid flushing peer output buffers except in SendModule. This
allows for some consolidation of messages to reduce network
overhead.

Code Fixes
* Fixed use of cfg_req_queue_length to be the actual queue size
(queue was half of this value).
* Fixed: "peer is" verbose output could fubar the terminal.
* Formatting: Replaced indentation tabs with spaces for consistency.

Operational Enhancements
* Improved piece selection methods to include rarity as a factor.
This is not strictly "rarest-first", as we do not make a
comprehensive effort to find the "rarest" piece or rank pieces by
rarity. Rather, we use a more efficient compromise and try to find
the set of pieces that have "trade value" (another peer needs
them) and make a random choice from that set. Here is the current
preference order used in each mode:
Trade Value is defined as:
1. Piece that only this peer has (not considering other
seeders), that a peer in which we're interested needs.
2. Piece that not every peer in which we're interested has.
3. Piece that only this peer has (not considering other
seeders).
4. Piece that not every peer has.
Normal Mode
1. Piece we tried to get from another peer but stopped due to
choking or lost connection. (We have part of the piece
already.)
2. Piece most recently acquired by the peer (possibly/probably
rare).
3. Piece with trade value.
4. Any piece not yet requested.
Initial-piece Mode
1. Piece with trade value which is already in progress.
2. Piece with trade value that more than one peer has.
3. Piece with trade value.
4. Any piece not yet requested.
Endgame Mode
1. Piece with trade value which is already in progress, of which
we have the least amount.
2. Piece already in progress of which we have the least amount.
* Advanced request queueing system.
+ Instead of requesting all of the slices for a piece at one
time, we now measure latency to the peer and send requests
based on how long it takes the data to arrive. This avoids
wasting upload banwidth by having too many outstanding
requests: If we get choked or lose the connection, the extra
requests were wasted; in initial or endgame modes, more
requests would have to be cancelled when we completed the
piece.
+ A new piece will be queued for download when there is space
in the queue and we've requested the slices that have been
queued already. We also don't wait for the current piece to
complete before sending requests for a new piece. This helps
to maintain a continuous flow of data in the download
pipeline.
+ When duplicating a request in initial or endgame mode, slices
that have already been requested are queued last.
* Don't send HAVE messages to seeders (to save UL bandwidth).
+ Since we maintain interested state, and know the peer is a
seeder, we'll do the right thing when we become a seeder.
+ Not sending HAVE to all peers (leechers) that already have
the piece is a bad idea IMO. If everyone takes the same
attitude, none of us will know when another becomes a seeder
and connections will remain open/occupied.
+ We do send a HAVE to seeders upon completing our first piece
so that we don't continue to appear empty.
* Endgame strategy is used in get1file mode to complete the file.
* Queue management:
+ Don't accept requests from choked peers.
+ Discard peer's reponse_q when we choke them.
+ Don't send cancels when we get choked (according to spec &
discussions).
+ Don't put full piece queues in pending.
+ Move closing peer's request queue to pending instead of
discarding it.
* Prefer uploading to or downloading from a peer after we skip them
due to bandwidth limiting. This is done via the g_next_up and
g_defer_up global variables in peer.cpp (for UL; s/up/dn for the
DL versions). The peerlist Sort() function and peer "click"
variables have been removed since they are not needed with this
feature.

Options & Features
* The -c option now reports file completion status.
+ As a side effect the metainfo details are printed twice. This
allows you to view the torrent contents while pieces are
being verified.
+ Total percentage completion is also added to the output.
* "-E" option to seed to a specified UL:DL ratio. Seeding will stop
when this ratio or the timeout (-e) is reached. If CTorrent starts
as a seeder, the ratio is interpreted as UL:[torrent size].
* If "-e 0" is specified (explicitly) and -E is used, there will be
no timeout; seeding will continue until the ratio is reached.
* The "-m" option previously didn't do anything, and it isn't clear
what it was originally going to do. Now the default value is 1,
and CTorrent will try to maintain at least this many peers by
contacting the tracker early if the peer count falls below this
value. This feature was present in release dnh1 but the value was
not changeable.
Actually it seems likely that this was to be number of peers that
the client would try to obtain (by initiating connections), as the
"official" client does; this is mentioned as a note in the online
specification. I don't really see the value in that though. That
said, the option as implemented here should rarely be used. It
might be useful only with torrents that have significantly more
than max_peers total peers and use a long tracker update interval
(such that you tend to drop a lot of peers betwen updates).
* "-z" option to set the slice size (the unit of a request, i.e. the
discrete amount of data that will be requested from a peer at one
time). The slice size now defaults to 16K regardless of the piece
length. Request queue size is computed and set based on the slice
size, as it now affects only system resources (though not a lot)
and not the way that requests are sent.
* Add support for "key" and "trackerid" tracker interaction
parameters.
* Support/display tracker warning message
* Now able to handle torrents with more than 255 files.
* Support for [2]CTorrent Control Server, an application and
protocol for monitoring and managing multiple Enhanced CTorrent
clients. The "-S" option is used to connect to CTCS, as in "-S
localhost:2780" if CTCS is listening at port 2780 on the local
system. Appending a colon ("-S localhost:2780:") will prompt for a
password to authenticate with CTCS.

Peer Handling
* Count immediate choke-unchoke (either order) as an error (two
errors actually, since it's so wasteful).
It may be that some clients do this to stimulate the peer when
they think it hasn't responded to their last unchoke (due to high
latency). It would be better for them to just repeat the unchoke
rather than choke-unchoke, as by choking they will cause the peer
to send the requests again.
* Detect unresponsive peer connections and try to fix them or
disconnect them. Basically, if a peer doesn't respond to our
request in a reasonable time then we first assume that our request
was lost in transmission; if it happens again then we assume the
connection is unreliable.
* Handle peers that suppress HAVE messages so we don't always think
that they're empty (and thus give them preferential treatment for
uploading). If we've sent the peer an amount of data equivalent to
two pieces, assume that they now have at least one complete piece.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh1.2" Release

These are just corrections to the previous release that I felt were
necessary. Much more improvement is coming in the dnh2 release.

Bug/code fixes
* Bitfield::Invert patch [1357832 on sourceforge] described below.
* Fixed "piece length too long" check to reflect the actual queue
length used.
* Accept 128K slice size for peer requests.
* "Return" keyword in Random_init() removed due to potential compile
error.
* Modified longer-wait test in the optimistic unchoke routine to
consider whether the peer is currently choked.
_________________________________________________________________

Bitfield::Invert bug

There is a bug in the Bitfield::Invert() function that affects the
ctorrent-1.3.4 base code as well as releases dnh1 and dnh1.1. This can
cause the application to fail (segmentation fault) or may affect
downloading of all pieces of the torrent. A patch is available in the
Download secion.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh1.1" Release

These are just corrections to the previous release that I felt were
necessary. Much more improvement is coming in the next release.

Bug/code fixes
* Peer count would increase on each tracker update if there were no
seeders.
* RequestQueue::CopyShuffle() changed to use a pointer argument.
* Fixed some incorrectness in PendingQueue::Delete() and
PendingQueue::DeleteSlice() which could cause a memory leak.
* Fixed random-chance inversion bug in PeerList::UnChokeCheck()
affecting choice for optimistic unchoking.

Improvements
* Move StopDLTimer() call from RequestPiece() to RequestCheck(),
which could occasionally affect peer download rate measurement.
* Most clients do not like a slice size of 128K even though it is
the max allowed by the BT specification. Changed max slice size to
64K. Note that the maximum piece length is 2MB (2097152); if you
need to download a torrent with a larger piece size you can change
the value of cfg_req_queue_length in btconfig.h from 64 to 128.
* Contact tracker immediately upon becoming (or starting as) a
seeder.
* Changed SendModule() to send only one slice at a time. This will
help with fairly distributing upload bandwidth among the unchoked
peers.
* Changed default peer ID prefix to '-CD0101-', indicating
CTorrent-dnh1.1 release.
_________________________________________________________________

Changes for "dnh1" Release

This is the first release. "dnh" identifies this patchset, and "1"
indicates release version 1 of the patchset.

Patches
* Incorporates the following patches. The number is the Request ID
from the [3]SourceForge patches page, which you can reference for
the details of each patch. The name in brackets is the name of the
patch file or a name I chose to refer to the patch. Some of these
names are used below (in brackets) to describe a fix or change to
a particular patch.
1042808 [getcwd] (incorporated in get1file patch)
1084776 [passkey] (incorporated in udlimit patch)
1109266 [align]
1109287 [tracker/tracker2]
1114197 [fmt] (incorporated in get1file patch)
1114364 [resetdl]
1116448 [get1file]
1118597 [crash]
1119467 [stall]
1119492 [rate]
1119497 [flush]
1119519 [opt]
1119689 [status]
1124342 [udlimit]

Download performance
* If a peer socket is ready for reading and writing, perform both.
Previously the cases were exclusive, with preference given to
reading.
* Download requests are now made to peers when they are ready for
writing (in addition to the existing event-driven cases). This
fixes peer stalls when a request couldn't be sent in an
event-triggered case due to bandwidth limiting or other
circumstances.
* Additional tests added so that the above request checking doesn't
create hard loops.

Bandwidth measurement/management
* [rate] Bandwidth reporting is now not capped. Also, only the time
used for the samples taken is used in the calculation rather than
the maximum interval (this affects rate calculation for individual
peers).
* Additional upload and download bandwidth limit checks added so
that bw management is more accurate.
* Corrected condition inversion bug in Rate::StopTimer(), which
affects peer rate calculations.

Peer count
* Request our max number of peers from the tracker each time rather
than just taking the tracker's default, so we can try to fill up.
* The tracker will be contacted early if all peers disconnect so
that we can actively try to establish some more peer connections.
To avoid hammering the tracker, we must have at least one peer for
15 seconds in order for this to be invoked.
* Some clients use nonzero bytes in the "reserved" part of the
handshake. Added code to ignore the reserved bytes if the rest of
the handshake is as expected. This includes Azureus 2300 thru 2304
(latest) which gives 0x80 as the first reserved byte and BitComet
which gives 0x6578 ("ex") as the first two bytes.
* Update peer's timestamp on any message, not just keepalives. Any
receipt of data from a peer now resets its timeout, preventing
early disconnect.

Parallel requests
* Initial-piece and endgame cases have been improved so that pieces
will be requested from multiple peers. Cancels are sent as slices
(subpieces) are received. This endgame strategy is described in
the BitTorrent online spec. The startup strategy is also described
in posts and facilitates obtaining a single piece more rapidly in
order to obtain some trade value. In initial mode, the piece of
which we need the least parts is targeted. In endgame mode, the
piece of which we need the most parts is targeted. Slices that are
cancelled are also removed from the "pending" queue, as are pieces
that are completed.
* When duplicating a piece request, the slice request order is also
shuffled in order to minimize duplication of effort.

Tracker info
* [status] Seems to be missing tracker.cpp diff. Added code to get
tracker's total peers, but not all trackers report these fields in
the normal response. Also added code to count successful updates
from the tracker.
* Added tracker connection state to status line (when
connecting/connected).

Tracker contact
* When interrupting (ctrl-C), connect to the tracker immediately
rather than waiting 15 seconds.
* Contact tracker "soon" after transitioning to seeder state.

Peer interaction
* Manage our interested state for each peer dynamically as content
changes.
* Unchoking
+ Use the peer's interested state (confirming via the bitfield
that it needs our data) to consider unchoking. Using only the
bitfield could cause us to waste an upload slot on a peer
that doesn't have all content but isn't interested (like a
single-file downloader).
+ Choke peers that become uninterested or don't need our data.
+ Try unchoking new peers only as slots open or the optimistic
unchoke rotates. Unchoking too many peers can temporarily
reduce per-peer upload rates, which would make uploading to
us unappealing for good peers.
+ In a tie for download speed, prefer to unchoke the peer to
whom we've uploaded the least data relative to what we've
downloaded from him.
* Optimistic unchoking
+ Fixed condition inversion bug causing opt unchoking to occur
too often.
+ A peer who has no pieces is now preferred 75% vs. a peer who
already has at least one piece, in order to help the new peer
become productive. This is documented in the online spec.
+ Set peer's last-unchoke-time when choking the peer to get
better rotation of the optimistic unchoke. The value is now
the last time that a peer was in the unchoked state rather
than the time of the last unchoke event.

Miscellaneous items
* [tracker] Fixed normal program end (stop) process, which was
crashing.
* [get1file] Restore compact tracker response support.
* [get1file] Made display of the status line info dependent on
whether the option is in use.
* [get1file] Apply the filter when checking for what we need from a
peer instead of when recording what the peer has; this prevents
stalls when we move on to the next file. Update interested state
for each peer when we begin a new file. Also move the file-done
check into the piece completion code and check whether the next
file(s) has also been completed.
* Reduced the slice size from 32K to 16K (same as BT & Azureus).
This provides more precise DL rate measurement, and helps insure
that we receive a productive amount of data (i.e. a complete
slice) even if we are unchoked by a peer for only one cycle. See
[4]http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BitTorrent/message/1260 for more
discussion/analysis on this.
* Added -v (verbose) option for additional debugging output.

References

1. http://www.eurecom.fr/~michiard/pubs/bt_experiments_techRepINRIA-00001111_VERSION1_13FEBRUARY2006.pdf
2. http://www.rahul.net/dholmes/ctorrent/ctcs.html
3. http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=598034&group_id=91688&func=browse
4. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BitTorrent/message/1260