Auto-uploader v4

Uploader v4 is out and it is miles ahead of v3 in terms of stability, ease of setup and ease of use.

Even though I released it a few months ago, there were some things I wanted to add and test before I announce it to the public. It now performs better than I expected so I figured I should write about it here.

Setup

Statically compiled – no need for compiling

The time it takes to do the initial setup has been reduced a lot. There is no need to install any dependencies anymore because Uploader is now available as a statically compiled i686 binary that should run on most Linux servers.

I also made statically compiled rTorrent (with the headless patch), tmux, lighttpd and other tools that are used with the uploader. You can use these versions to save some time going through dependency hell and compiling, or you can use your own binaries if you wish to. (Since statically compiled binaries might be of interest to some of you, especially in case of rTorrent, I’ll talk about this in a separate post. Sources are on my Github page.)

This is good news because it is possible to run Uploader on  shared seedboxes. So far I have tested it only on some shared boxes with SSH access but it should be possible to use it without ssh as long as there is some way to execute the binary.

Better structured, completely portable

In previous versions it took some time to change paths in every configuration file to make it work after moving it to other location. The new version uses relative paths and some cool scripts to make sure it runs no matter where you move it.

Just move “tuper4/” folder to a new location/server and run it without doing any manual changes. Yes, it is that simple.

Easy to migrate

If you are still using the previous version it is easy to migrate to v4 using the new migrate script. Just run a single command and your’e all done.

Automatic updating

V4 will receive critical updates automatically by default. This means that when a download source or some API changes and breaks some functionality, it will fix itself as soon as update is available.

Usability and features

Now, when deploying and updating is made easy I have had more time to focus on new features and usability improvements.

Uploader is now easier to use by novice users and at the same time more advanced features have been added for the more experienced users who need more control over how things work.

Features

Multiple functions were fixed and new features were added to the core of the Uploader. Among them are:

• Easier to view and understand debugging messages;
• Better dupe detection;
• Smart IMDB title search. This allows automatic IMDB info and poster retrieval;
• Fixed TVRage info lookup for TV shows;
• Updated GiantBomb game info retrieval functions;
• Better BBCode converter and image uploading functions to include screenshots and other images in the description;
• Fixed RAR and ZIP extraction functions that allow automatic creation of new unpacked releases.
• Better handling of unicode, messed up encoding and ascii art.

Some of the non-core improvements:

• Added new debugging tool called “logstream” that uses websockets to show realtime message output of the Uploader. It also shows process groups and allows to view output of each single task;
• Modified browser plugin to use websockets to show realtime status of the task being run;
• New version of web panel is being worked on;
• New script to easily start, stop and see the status of the Uploader and all the related processes (rTorrents, lighttpd).

Better support

Making it easier to set up and update gives more time for supporting users and helping them find answers to their questions.

Also wiki and forum has improved and it is easier to find answers than it was before.

Existing users

And as it has always been, existing users still get the access to the latest version and it probably will stay this way in the future.

Summary

As years have passed, Uploader is still being developed and version 4 is a big step forward. It is completely different experience to how it was couple years ago. Making these changes makes it better for you, saves more time for me and it also means that it costs less. So, when you need the ultimate tool to automate it, you know where to look. 🙂