Hi,

this is my first post here. I'm currently using KTorrent 2.0.2 under Gentoo Linux (it is the current stable branch as marked by Gentoo software maintainers.)
Right now, i'm downloading a DVD that comes as a 4.02 GB torrent. I have configured my client to use DHT on port 4000 (the default value) and have configured my firewall (iptables) to allow incoming UDP connections through that port.
The torrent is downloading fine but i'm curious about one thing: on the bottom of KTorrent's windows i can see "DHT: 121 nodos, 0 tareas (my client shows everything in spanish)". However, there are only nine peers (counting leechers and seeds) and an "X" is shown on the DHT column under the "Peers" tab for all of them. How is this behaviour explained? What do these numbers mean?

Thanks,

Roblov.

Nodes represent many other clients supporting DHT like yourself. It doesn't mean you're connected to 121 peers. It just a way to get more peers separate of the tracker.

I couldn't explain this much worse than I did so I suggest you read about DHT on Wikipedia until our documentation is not ready.

I guess the "X" in the DHT column mean those peers don't support DHT, right?

Roblov.

(1) Nodes are the # of DHT peers you are in direct communication with. 100 is a usual number. You begin accumulating nodes as you make contact with DHT-capable peers.

(2) Tasks are how many activities are being carried out at the moment via DHT. i.e. announcing a torrent would be considered a 'task'.

(3) X in the DHT column usually means a client doesn't support DHT or has DHT turned off, or is otherwise unusable for DHT. However, it's a known issue that BitComet and uTorrent both support DHT most of the times but never advertises its DHT capability. In these cases we attempt to blindly probe the client for DHT capability, though you still won't see a check-mark for DHT support.

Our DHT I have verified to be compatible with uTorrent, BitComet, libTorrent, Deluge, Mainline. There may be others that it works with too but I haven't thought of. One notable exception is Azureus, which implements its own DHT system incompatible with all the above listed clients. It's unlikely that other torrent clients will implement compatibility with Azureus DHT.

Thank you very much for your clear explanation.

Roblov.