First Steps
Getting Started Guide Downloadmanager
This documentation shows the installation and the first steps of the
downlodamanager for win32/linux. The server is a console-application compiled with Borland's
Kylix/Delphi6 and shouldn't need any packages installed. The client is a graphical application, it needs a qt-library (there are files with and without this library in the download area).
Who needs such a manager?
This manager is for all the people who share their internet-connection with
other people and want to coordinate their downloads, so that no download
blocks the connection. Especially for users with modem/isdn-connections - and
maybe a flatrate, depending on your financial situation ;-) - this manager
should give more flexibility with downloads.
One decision to write such a manager was to be able to download something on a remote machine over night and don't have to sleep beneath my own running computer.
How does it work?
The manager can queue the downloads of many clients. If no client is
connected or in need of the internet-connection, it starts downloading the
first file in the list, and proceeds until all downloads are ready.
If one client needs the connection he just has to send the command 'block' and
the server immediately stops downloading. So the clients are able to get the
lost performance back without asking all the other users if someone is
blocking the line with any download.
How to start?
Simply start the file 'dlmanager' on the server, it will then listen on port 9001 by default. Use the -p parameter to use another port.
Now you need a client. To start you could use telnet, since the manager uses an ascii protocol. But you will only be able to administrate the download list, filetransfers from server to client are not possible this way.
But there is a graphical client available, which can do that filetransfers. It is still in early alpha stage, many features are not implemented, but it does the job for now. In the download area there are two win32-zip-files of the client. If you already have the qtintf.dll on your system (comes eg. with delphi 6), then you can download the smaller file, the only difference is that it doesn't come with the mentioned dll.
When the client and the server are started you will have to add the server to the list of active servers. Because of its early development stage, the client is still not able to save such information, so you will have to do this again every time you start it. But this will be changed :) To add a server, click on the speedbutton on the upper left corner of the main window. The alias name is just for you to give every server a description. Fill in the host of the server and the port (by default 9001) and finally a username. The username will be saved along with your downloads, so the server knows who it has to inform, when a download is finished.
Connect to the server by clicking the connect-button, now you are able to add a job to the list. When a download is finished you can save the file on your system via the 'Show Finished'-Button.
This version is still beta and is only released to show the possibilities of
this software.
Any suggestions welcome, just email to:
robert.brueckmann@ii.stud.tu-ilmenau.de
Have fun!
Robert