Hail Direct Connect, Hail!

Hi, Habr! It has been almost a year since the day my provider “reorganized” its local network. My internal static IP address has sunk into oblivion, on which, at one time, a couple of cozy resources were located. Our local network was quite developed: a couple of thousand regular visitors daily, terabytes of files, about a hundred (in its best years) resources, including its own DynDNS analogue, two torrent trackers (one of which is the largest, the only thing at the moment) survived from our lokalki) and even free hosting sites. All this was supported exclusively by users, without participation, and even more funding, by the provider.

The external Internet, at that time, was expensive and slow for us - the cheapest anlim cost one and a half thousand rubles (by the way, I lived quite far from Moscow).
The development engine of the local network (not only ours, I think) were Direct Connect hubs. Perhaps you,% username%, have never heard of such a phenomenon (which is surprising and hardly seems to be true). However, this universal remedy, not whimsical, requiring almost no skills from its creator, has recently, catastrophically lost its popularity among the masses. And in vain. No, really nothing.
I myself, I confess, I have not been there for a long time. But a couple of days ago I found a “dusty” dc-client in a heap of rubbish on a screw, and I was overcome by longing for the times of my childhood (I am still quite young, but then I was 14-15 years old).
Yes, under the guise of a film just released on cinema screens, often turned out to be a product of the porn industry (although, in fairness, it is worth noting that the quality of the picture and the entertainment of the “cinema masterpiece” sometimes turned out to be high). But I would like to focus on the advantages of this peer-to-peer network.

Fighting piracy?

It is obvious that the expected expected entry of Russia into the WTO will be the tightening of laws in the field of “intellectual piracy”. Probably, we should expect a wave of repression against large file sharing sites. And, in general, there are not so many of them. It is much more difficult to control DC hubs - there are many more of them than, for example, large bittorrent trackers. Yes, and the hub is minimized in one click, leaving no compromising information on the computer of its owner.

Sharyu what I want

It does not matter what you downloaded to the downloaded. You share with users what you want to share, without looking at the ratings.
')

Configuration flexibility

The functionality of the hub is extended by scripts. The popular PtokaX server, for example, supports lua scripts (which, by the way, is well documented).

<offtop> At school age I was indecently curious. I kept my own hub on PtokaX with a hundred users, among whom were my classmates and classmates. It was very interesting to me to read their personal correspondence. It was implemented with a couple of lines:

admin = "_"
bot= "__"
function ToArrival(user,data)
SendPmToNick(admin, bot," "..user.sName.." ("..user.sIP..") : "..data.."")
end

I do not know how in the new versions, but before 4.0 the script works exactly. </ offtop>

Resource intensity

Verlihub - server software for organizing a DC hub for Linux and FreeBSD - boasts stable performance on weak hardware, even with several thousand users on board. Version under Win does not have. In other matters, with respect to the same Bittorent tracker, the DC hub will be more economical.

There are, of course, a few drawbacks. For example, it is unlikely that a user who shares a directory with movies will indicate their detailed description. You can, of course, ask the user himself about what interests you ... In addition, the user has no interest in uploading files - no one will apply any penalties to him. However, perhaps the majority of users distribute in good faith, staying online all day or even night.

The following is a brief overview of server software based on personal experience.

Server software

You can create your own hub in five minutes without bothering yourself. On the one hand, it’s good, on the other hand, it’s bad in other matters, it’s also good, at the hubs where the finished shkolot reigns, no one forces you to enter. And what do you care about this shkoloty? Fortunately, acid fonts or background music performed by them outside the next idol will not be able to upset you.

PtokaX

Screenshot courtesy of Wikipedia.

As I wrote above, PtokaX is one of the most popular hubs (let here and further " hub " = " server software for organizing a DC hub "). It was originally sharpened under Windows, but for some time it has a Unix version, without a GUI. Very easy to set up, supports lua scripts. However, since version 0.4, the version of lua has been EXTREMELY refreshed, which is why some of the scripts I have used before have not “started”. In childhood I preferred not to read the documentation, therefore, scratching the back of my head, I returned to the good old 0.3.5.
Distributed under the GNU GPL license.

Verliub

Verlihub logo.

I also mentioned it above. GUI does not have. Works on all Unix systems (and even Mac OS X ). It supports plugins , due to which it can support scripts on lua (somewhat different from those supported by PtokaX) and python. In installation and configuration, everything is also quite simple (just as much as it can be in the absence of a graphical interface). All data is stored in mysql.
Distributed under the GNU GPL license.

YnHUB

Nuff said. Somehow not too serious, in my opinion.

Works exclusively in Windows. Of the features, I can only highlight that you can manage it remotely through a web interface. Supports scripts.
Proprietary

Just as in other peer-to-peer networks, DC uses DHT, which makes life much easier for the server.

In general, perhaps, that's all. As for the client programs, there are a great many of them - for any OS.
And yes, this is my first habratopik.