I like Transmission app but it lacks an important feature for me, which is Magnet Links. So, I searched the web looking for an alternative and found Aria2, which can: automatically download .torrent files from URLs, process Magnet links, and directly download normal files from http or ftp!

Here is a brief tutorial on how to install aria2 and its web gui in addition to a simple file manager to manage the downloaded files.

First instal aria2:

yum install aria2

Then, create a flexshare, for example "dm", with web access, then:

cd /var/www/html/

svn checkout https://github.com/ziahamza/webui-aria2.git/trunk dm

Make the required config and log files:

mkdir /var/aria2/

touch /var/aria2/download.session

mkdir /var/log/aria2

touch /var/log/aria2/aria.log

mkdir /etc/aria2/

Make a directory inside your flexshare to store the downloaded files into

mkdir /var/flexshare/shares/dm/downloads

Edit /etc/aria2/aria2.conf file and paste the following into it:

dir=/var/flexshare/shares/dm/downloads

rpc-secret=some-crazy-secret-token! # <- change this!

daemon=true

enable-rpc=true

rpc-listen-all=true

file-allocation=falloc

continue=true

log=/var/log/aria2/aria.log

log-level=warn

check-certificate=false

max-connection-per-server=8

summary-interval=120

enable-dht=true 

rpc-listen-port=6800

max-concurrent-downloads=3

http-auth-challenge=true

input-file=/var/aria2/download.session

save-session=/var/aria2/download.session

save-session-interval=10

disable-ipv6=true

disk-cache=10M

timeout=600

retry-wait=30

max-tries=50

deferred-input=true

Make the service handler for aria2, /etc/init.d/aria2:

#!/bin/sh

#

# aria2    ariac server

#

# chkconfig: 345 70 30

# description: ariac server

# processname: aria2c



Prgmname="/usr/bin/aria2c"

shortname="aria2c"



#one option 

options="--conf-path="



# configfile=/full_path/configfile

configfile="/etc/aria2/aria2.conf"



start() {

# Code here to start the program

logger -t ARIA2C "Starting aria2c daemon "

${Prgmname} ${options}${configfile}

sleep 5

return 0

}



stop() {

# Code here to stop the program and check it's dead

if [ -n "`pidof $shortname`" ]; then

logger -t ARIA2C "Shutting down aria2c daemon "

/usr/bin/killall $shortname

sleep 5

fi

return 0

}

##########################start here##########################

case "$1" in

start)

start

;;

stop)

stop

;;

restart)

logger -t ARIA2C "$shortname restart, executed from $(whoami)"

stop

sleep 2

start

;;

*)

echo $"Usage: $0 {start|stop|restart}"

exit 1

esac

sleep 1

exit

Start the service and make sure aria2 is running

chmod +x /etc/init.d/aria2

chkconfig --level 345 aria2 on

service aria2 start

ps -aux | grep aria

Download a simple web file manager (make sure you secure properly):

cd /var/flexshare/shares/dm

mkdir downloads && cd downloads

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/prasathmani/tinyfilemanager/master/tinyfilemanager.php -O index.php

chown apache:admins index.php

Now, go to your flexshare, http://dm.domain.com, and set the connection secret token (see aria2.conf above) to start using the app. The file manager will be at: dm.domain.com/downloads