Peers that DL from me but won't let me DL from them

[joewill]

When I am downloading a torrent (DL not yet complete), I often see in the peer list for the torrent peers that I am uploading to, but have a "d" indicating that they will not allow me to DL from them. I had previously thought that Transmission might let that go on for a short time, but eventually choke those peers. But I have seen Transmission let that go on indefinitely, uploading at the same rate to these "selfish" peers as it is uploading to other peers that are letting me download.

I think it is only fair that the peers that will not let me download be either blocked completely, or else get a much lower upload rate from me as compared to the upload rate I am sending to peers who are letting me download.

Is there any way to accomplish this "fairness" goal with Transmission? The best that I have found so far is to manually add IPs to the blocklist, but that is extremely inconvenient, and also requires a restart of Transmission to block the peer.

[blacke4dawn]

How can you be sure they actually have free slots for you or any data that you don't already have?

[joewill]

How can you be sure they actually have free slots for you or any data that you don't already have?

They definitely have data I do not already have, since I have seen it happen when I have, say, 5% of the torrent, and they have 75%.

As for free slots, that is irrelevant. If they will not allocate a slot to let me download, then they do not deserve to get the same upload bandwidth from me as I am giving to other peers who are letting me download. Fair is fair.

[lazybones]

How can you be sure they actually have free slots for you or any data that you don't already have?

They definitely have data I do not already have, since I have seen it happen when I have, say, 5% of the torrent, and they have 75%.

As for free slots, that is irrelevant. If they will not allocate a slot to let me download, then they do not deserve to get the same upload bandwidth from me as I am giving to other peers who are letting me download. Fair is fair.

That isn't how bittorent works...

Each client typically has a upload limit and slots that limit how many others can download at once, this will always fill up and who is download changes over time... You can just suddenly expect other peers to give you bandwidth.

[joewill]

Each client typically has a upload limit and slots that limit how many others can download at once, this will always fill up and who is download changes over time... You can just suddenly expect other peers to give you bandwidth.

That does not really make any sense. Could you please say again, and correct any typos?

Typically, peers who have higher upload rates should be given more bandwidth for their download, as compared to other peers who have lower upload rates. This is not only fair, but it is also good for the efficiency of the cloud.

[lazybones]

Are you complaining about speed from a single peer or not connecting to a peer?

As far as speed in many parts of the world connections are sold asymmetric, ie upload speed is low, but download is high.
Locally for me it is common to see a 20mbit download but only 0.5 mbit up.

Transmission uses MBytes as its units so that uplink looks even smaller 64KBytes/s divide that by 2 upload slots and you get 32 and that is allocating everything to shareing you add overhead or more slots and it is easy to see why so many peers have very slow speeds then seeding/sharing.

[joewill]

As far as speed in many parts of the world connections are sold asymmetric, ie upload speed is low, but download is high.
Locally for me it is common to see a 20mbit download but only 0.5 mbit up.

Everyone knows that, and it is irrelevant to my question of throttling or blocking peers that download from me but won't let me download from them.

Since no one has responded to my question in my OP, it seems that the answer is that Transmission has no good way to do what I am asking.

It would be nice if Transmission could have an option to automatically throttle such peers on torrents that I am downloading (not seeding). It would also be helpful if Transmission had the capability to live update the block list, allowing me to click on a peer from the list and have the peer blocked.

[lazybones]

Again your comment confuses me.

The peers downloading from you do not nessarily have any parts of the download you are downloading, try could just be starting. Thus they will not share what they done have.

If transmission allowed you to block in the way you suggest no one would get anything.

Bittorent works by randomly distributing parts of the download to the swarm and gradually as swarm members get parts they share those with others and so on.

[joewill]

Again your comment confuses me.

The peers downloading from you do not nessarily have any parts of the download you are downloading, try could just be starting. Thus they will not share what they done have.

You certainly are confused, I'll give you that. Most of everything else you wrote is wrong.

The peers I am referring to most definitely DO have parts of the download I want. Did you even read this thread? Typically I might have 5% and they have 75%, so obviously they have parts I need.

As for the nonsense you posted about "no one would get anything", you don't know what you are talking about. Every torrent has at least one seeder, so obviously they would get something eventually. And it is in the best interests of the cloud as a whole to give more upload bandwidth to other peers that also have more upload bandwidth, so that the total amount of seed bandwidth increases as quickly as possible.

Please stop posting nonsense in this thread. You should really read more about how a torrent cloud works.

[joewill]

Every torrent has at least one seeder

On which planet?

Earth.

How do you think a torrent gets started without a seeder who has 100% of the torrent?

Theoretically, I suppose you could start with, say 10 peers who each have a different 10% of the torrent, but I have never seen that done.

[lazybones]

Every torrent has at least one seeder

On which planet?

Earth.

How do you think a torrent gets started without a seeder who has 100% of the torrent?

Theoretically, I suppose you could start with, say 10 peers who each have a different 10% of the torrent, but I have never seen that done.

All torrents do start with a seed, however the tracker and seeder will try and distribute rare chunks to as many peers as possible to increase the odds that if the initial seeder goes off line and no one else is seeding a complete copy, that there is a complete set of chunks spread out among the swarm.

[blacke4dawn]

So let me get this straight? You want to limit the upload speed to peers that don't allow download to the same peer and you say that that will make the cloud more "healthy"?

Your biggest complaint seem to be with those that have gotten far in the download process, but you seem to be neglecting those that are new to that torrent. If this is implemented then every peer that isn't currently done will severely restrict the speed they allow new peers to download from them due to the new ones not having anything to share yet, so new ones will have to almost exclusively rely on seeders which I think would be just wrong.

You also seem to have an entitlement issue here, in that you see it as a right to download from someone that you are uploading to, that is at least the impression I get.

[joewill]

So let me get this straight? You want to limit the upload speed to peers that don't allow download to the same peer and you say that that will make the cloud more "healthy"?

I'm not sure who you are quoting ("healthy"), but yes, the ones that have parts that I need, and that I am uploading to, but will not allow me to download, should get less upload bandwidth from me as compared to the peers that are letting me download from them.

This will obviously improve the efficiency of the swarm, statistically. Surely you can see that?

By the way, how many simultaneous peers does Transmission unchoke (I'm asking anyone who has carefully watched their downloads)? With me, it seems rather random, but it is a lot more than four (which was the protocol default at some point).

[lazybones]

joewill you forget that when you joing a swarm you start with nothing. Meaning that if we took your suggestion it would be next to impossible for you to get any parts since other peers with parts would be favoring each other and would keep you from being able to get into any of their download slots since you where not sharing with them.

[joewill]

Since this thread started by raising the issue of Transmission's use of the tit-for-tat scheme, here is a quote straight from the horse's mouth.

"It might make more sense to use tit-for-tat more strictly than we
currently do, but leaving it up to the users to micromanage peers is not
the right way to handle the issue."

http://web.archiveorange.com/archive/v/ ... zVsDyGdvwY

But allowing "users to micromanage peers" is not what I really want. I'd much prefer Transmission to manage them automatically. I don't know why Transmission allows some peers to continue unchoked for a long time (I've watched some for more than 5 minutes) when they will not allow me to download from them. An optimistic unchoke should last for less than a minute if the peer does not reciprocate.

Does Transmission allow configuration of the number of regular unchokes and optimistic unchokes, and the duration of the optimistic unchokes?