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SwarmOtter User Guide

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SwarmOtter is a performance-first Rust BitTorrent daemon with a practical Web UI, a complete API, and fail-closed VPN/NIC traffic containment.

This guide is for people running SwarmOtter. Architecture, requirements, ADRs, and contributor-facing design records remain in the repository design/ directory.

What SwarmOtter provides

  • A daemon process, swarmotterd.
  • A Web UI served by the daemon.
  • A REST API under /api/v1.
  • .torrent, magnet, tracker, DHT, PEX, TCP, UDP tracker, and uTP support.
  • IPv4 and IPv6 torrent networking when enabled by configuration.
  • Strict data-plane containment through an interface, source address, or network namespace.

Important operating model

SwarmOtter separates the control plane from the torrent data plane.

  • The control plane is the API and Web UI listener configured by api.bind_address.
  • The torrent data plane is peer, tracker, DHT, PEX, webseed, magnet metadata, and torrent-related DNS traffic.

Network containment applies to the torrent data plane. Binding the Web UI to a LAN address does not allow torrent traffic to use that LAN path unless the torrent network configuration explicitly allows and enforces it.

Start here

Use Getting Started for a local run, then read Configuration for the common br0, VPN, and container configurations. Use API Reference for scripting and integration work.