Building a BitTorrent client from the ground up in Go (2020)

Building a BitTorrent client from the ground up in Go Jan 4, 2020 What is the complete path between visiting thepiratebay and sublimating an mp3 file from thin air? In this post, we’ll implement enough of the BitTorrent protocol to download Debian. Look at the Source code or skip to the last bit This post is also available in Russian, Korean, and Chinese. BitTorrent is a protocol for downloading and distributing files across the Internet. In contrast with the traditional client/server relationship, in which downloaders connect to a central server (for example: watching a movie on Netflix, or loading the web page you’re reading now), participants in the BitTorrent network, called peers, download pieces of files from each other—this is what makes it a peer-to-peer protocol. We’ll investigate how this works, and build our own client that can find peers and exchange data between them. The protocol evolved organically over the past 20 years, and various people and organizations added ex ... Read full article.