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Managing the Daemon

The easiest way to run the daemon is just to leave a terminal open after running the following command:

cross-seed daemon

However, that's not very sustainable.

  • If you run cross-seed on a server that you use ssh to log into, then cross-seed will stop whenever your ssh session closes.
  • If the server restarts, then you'll have to start cross-seed manually.

Below are a few ways you can set up cross-seed daemon to run on its own:

Docker​

You can use Docker Compose. Create or open your existing docker-compose.yml file and add the cross-seed service:n

version: "2.1"
services:
  cross-seed:
    image: ghcr.io/cross-seed/cross-seed:6
    container_name: cross-seed
    user: 1000:1000 # optional but recommended
    ports:
      - "2468:2468"
    volumes:
      - /path/to/config/folder:/config
      - # You will need at least one extra volume for your media drive if using https://www.cross-seed.org/docs/tutorials/linking
    command: daemon
    restart: unless-stopped

After that, you can use the following commands to control it:

docker-compose pull # Update the container to the latest version of cross-seed
docker-compose up -d # Create/start the container
docker start cross-seed # Start the daemon
docker stop cross-seed # Stop the daemon
docker restart cross-seed # Restart the daemon
docker logs cross-seed # view the logs

Unraid​

If you are running cross-seed on Unraid you should have installed the "Community App" from ambipro's repository, this is our official container.

Be default, the container runs in daemon mode and no changes are needed.

We recommend you head over to the Unraid Tutorial for specifics and documentation for the container.

systemd (Linux)​

If you want to use systemd to run cross-seed daemon continuously, you can create a unit file in /etc/systemd/system.

touch /etc/systemd/system/cross-seed.service

Open the file in your favorite editor, and paste the following code in. You'll want to customize the following variables and ensure proper permissions are set to allow this user/group to read/write/execute appropriately:

  • User: your user, or another user if you want to create a separate user for cross-seed
  • Group: your group, or another group if you want to create a separate group for cross-seed
tip

Get your user and group by running the following command:

echo -e "User=$(id -un)\nGroup=$(id -gn)"
[Unit]
Description=cross-seed daemon
[Service]
User=MyUserHere
Group=MyGroupHere
Restart=always
Type=simple
ExecStart=cross-seed daemon
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

You can also try ExecStart=npx cross-seed daemon if the one above doesn't work.

info

Depending on how you installed cross-seed, you may need to specify absolute paths to node and/or cross-seed.

After installing the unit file, you can use these commands to control the daemon:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload # tell systemd to reindex to discover the unit file you just created
sudo systemctl enable cross-seed # enable it to run on restart
sudo systemctl start cross-seed # start the service
sudo systemctl stop cross-seed # stop the service
sudo systemctl restart cross-seed # restart the service
sudo journalctl -u cross-seed # view the logs

screen​

screen is a terminal multiplexer.

A Terminal multiplexer is a program that can be used to multiplex login sessions inside the Terminal. This allows users to have multiple sessions inside a single Terminal window. One of the important features of the Terminal multiplexer is that users can attach and detach these sessions.

Source: https://linuxhint.com/tmux_vs_screen/

Running a long-lived cross-seed daemon process in screen is very easy.

screen -S cross-seed -d -m cross-seed daemon

The above command will start a screen instance named cross-seed in detached mode, running the cross-seed daemon command at launch.

To attach to the screen, run the following command:

screen -r cross-seed

Once attached, you can detach with ctrl-A, D.

Windows​

caution

cross-seed AND YOUR TORRENT CLIENT MUST BE ON THE SAME OS TO USE LINKING (DOCKER ALWAYS RUNS ON LINUX, EVEN ON WINDOWS)

You can still use cross-seed without linking, but the features will be limited.

If you are using Windows 11, you can use the built-in Task Scheduler to run cross-seed daemon after logging in to your user account.

(These instructions should apply to all versions of Windows after Vista).

  1. Launch "Task Scheduler" from the Start Menu

  2. Right-click on "Task Scheduler Library" and select "Create Basic Task"

  3. Enter "Cross Seed" as the name and click "Next"

  4. Select "When I log on" as the trigger and click "Next"

  5. Select "Start a program" as the action and click "Next"

  6. Configure the launch command:

    a. After you've installed cross-seed, you can locate the executable that is used to launch it by using the command where cross-seed from a command prompt/terminal. Simply paste the path in the "Program/script" box.

    b. In the "Add arguments" box, enter daemon

    c. Click "Next"

  7. Check the box to select "Open the Properties dialog for this task when I click Finish", then click "Finish"

  8. Select the option for "Run whether user is logged on or not", then click "OK"

  9. You may want to explore the rest of the advanced options to fine-tune the behavior.

  10. Finally, test that this works by restarting your PC and checking the cross-seed logs for activity