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Data-Based Matching

Why?​

Torrent-based matching relies on .torrent files to be able to search for cross-seeds. In this method, it analyzes the list of files stored in the .torrent file and searches your trackers for similar files. If the files found from the remote torrent (candidate) match the local torrent (searchee), this is a match.

Data-based matching allows cross seed to not require the .torrent file, and instead to look at actual data files on disk to search for matches. This is great if you have the actual files to cross-seed, but not the .torrent files. This can be used to:

  • recover torrent files from a data catalog after data loss
  • seed Usenet downloads or other content you have acquired elsewhere

Setting up data-based matching​

  1. Set up linking as described in the linking tutorial.

  2. Set dataDirs to the directories containing the data you want to cross-seed.

  3. Set maxDataDepth to the maximum depth to traverse the file tree for generating searchees. If you specify a dataDir of /data/torrents, the depth is as follows. In this example, we would likely want to set maxDataDepth to 1.

    data/
    ├─ torrents/                  # 0
    │  ├─ torrent_name/           # 1
    │  |  ├─ torrent_file.mkv     # 2
    │  |  ├─ torrent_subfolder    # 2
    │  |  |  ├─ torrent_item.mkv  # 3

    In this example, with a dataDir of /TV, we would likely want to set maxDataDepth to 2.

    TV/                     # 0
    ├─ Show/                # 1
    │  ├─ Season 1/         # 2
    │  |  ├─ Episode 1.mkv  # 3
    │  |  ├─ Episode 2.mkv  # 3

    Be careful setting this to a higher value than 2 (if the dataDir is your torrents folder), else it might generate a larger than intended number of searchees that will not realistically get many matches.

  4. If you are trying to cross-seed data that has been renamed or whose names don't match standard torrent release naming schemes, set your matchMode to risky, or if you want even looser matching, consider setting up partial matching.

Daemon mode​

Data-based matching does not support RSS but does allow you to hit the cross-seed webhook endpoint with a path to use for data-based searching the same way you use the existing infoHash parameter (but with path).