The show downloading stack - part n+1

I’ve already mentioned my show downloading stack on this blog. It’s changed a bit since - I now use Transmission rather than rtorrent, as it has the excellent transmission-daemon package which has it acting exactly the way I like (without using screen). Also, it now E-mails me when a torrent is done downloading. So while this may be how TV works for you:

1. Notice that a new episode is out
2. Torrent it
3. Wait for the download to finish
4. Watch it

…this is how TV works for me now:

1. Receive E-mail notification of a new downloaded episode
2. Watch it

Here’s how it’s done: First, write /usr/local/bin/notify_torrent_done:

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#!/bin/bash
cat_the_message() {
cat <<EOF
Subject: Torrent done: $TR_TORRENT_NAME

Hello from transmission $TR_APP_VERSION at $(hostname). The following torrent
has completed:

Name: $TR_TORRENT_NAME
Finished at: $TR_TIME_LOCALTIME
Downloaded to: $TR_TORRENT_DIR
Hash: $TR_TORRENT_HASH

Enjoy!
EOF
}

RETVAL=1

while [[ $RETVAL != 0 ]]; do
    cat_the_message | msmtp -C /etc/msmtprc.transmission --from default -t your@email.address
    RETVAL=$?
done

The various environment variables will be set by transmission when it calls this script. We rerun msmtp until it succeeds because you will often get a “connection timed out” response from gmail (…at least on my ISP…). Here’s /etc/msmtprc.transmission which is relevant to gmail (this is a bit tricky and took a lot of fiddling around with):

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defaults
tls on
tls_starttls on
tls_trust_file /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt
timeout 60

account default
host smtp.gmail.com
port 587
auth on
user yourusername@gmail.com
password yourpasswordhere
from yourusername@gmail.com
syslog LOG_MAIL

As usual, caution is required when saving your password in plaintext. I highly recommend using Google’s two-step authentication, which will have you creating a one-time password for each application - use one of those one-time passwords here.

Finally, in /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json, add the following code:

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"script-torrent-done-enabled": true,
"script-torrent-done-filename": "/usr/local/bin/notify_torrent_done",

Important: You need to run /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon reload at this point, not restart - that would cause settings.json to be rewritten from runtime configuration.

That’s it. Enjoy!