IDEA: Open link (aka start download) with remote computer

[kae99]

Hello dear coders,
I have an idea for a "simple" program that i think can be very useful.

Here it is the scenario:
 - Many of us have a "home server" which manages all our downloads and stores all our multimedia files. (A Windows machine in my case)
 - We work from a different PC (e.g. our laptop) browsing the web and adding download jobs.
 - Most downloads (e.g. direct file download, bittorrent or emule links) are triggered just by opening a specific URL
 - We don't want to start the direct/P2P download in our actual PC (e.g. the laptop), but at the remote home server

Right now, there is no simple solution for this. If you want to start the download in the remote PC, you have to start a remote desktop connection to your home server or manage your P2P program through its web UI and start the download manually, which is quite cumbersome.

So, the request is pretty obvious
 ¿Would it be possible to implement some kind of program which will forward our local download requests so they will be started at the remote home server automatically?

It would probably require:
  - a small daemon at the home server which will wait for download requests
  - a "request forwarder" program which will associate itself with e.g. emule/bittorrent URLs in our laptop and will forward opening requests to the remote home server.

Of course there could be other solutions. For example, the "request forwarder" could do all the work by starting a ssh session in the background with the remote Windows server and starting the file download on his own.

Well, is there any brave coder who could provide a solution?

Thank you very much!!
Kae

[mouser]

This idea came up many years ago on the forum.. and i still think it sounds like a good idea to me..  maybe it could be implemented using a firefox extension on the client and a very small daemon on the remote computer that is just allowed to launch certain allowed commandline executables with the passed url (such executables could include standalone downloader tools, etc).

[justice]

Simple solution:

• Use a p2p program that can monitor a folder to autoload torrents or nzb's or whatever such as uTorrent or Alt.Binz
• Set up dropbox between home and work
• Use the program from step 1 to monitor a folder from step 2
• Add your torrent or nzb at place b to have it downloaded at place a.

[mouser]

that's pretty clever.

[justice]

It's what i use on occasion, even if you don't have two pcs on at the same time it saves you time because as soon as you turn on the pc at place a, dropbox will sync and the files will be loaded then - also uTorrent can move files out of the folder when they're loaded keeping it nice and tidy.

[kae99]

Thank you justice, as mouser has said, it is a clever solution , I had not thought about that

It would partially solve the problem, at least for downloading bittorrent/newsreader files, although I feel it would not work with, for example, emule, ftp or http downloads, as there are not specific small files (at the ".torrent" style) that you can download to trigger the remote download.
You could manually create a text file with the emule or ftp URL, but it would be a bit cumbersome and anyway I think Emule and (at least) the ftp programs I use do not monitorize any folder :-S

Thank you again for the approach. Any idea about how to solve the latter cases?

Kae

[justice]

you said that you didn't want to use textfiles but for these other programs i think it's the least complicated option in combination with Logmonitor. You could have it run a download manager such as FDM or wget with the textfile to download all these programs as soon as there's a new .url .http and .ftp file in the folder (make up an extension). I don't know of any ftp or emule programs thart can read a list of links though, maybe it exists, if you can start the program with an url as an argument then it should work with logmonitor.

A more expensive option is to buy a nas like the Synology DS209 and install the download redirector at Place B and make it accessible over he net. Then theoretically you could add whatever to the download redirector (it's like a download manager that you run on a different location) and the DS209 would retrieve it - again not tried this but it supports nzb, torrent, emule, http and ftp.

[kae99]

Thank you again, justice! I didn't know Logmonitor, but it seems a great tool! I will take it into consideration for future needs

Definitely, I am not buying a 600$ NAS for this purpose , but it is good to know

The text file with the url definitely is a good workaround and would work, but I still feel each time you are going to download a file it requires a too long process (e.g. copy link, open a text editor, paste link, select your monitorize folder for saving, give appropiate name..). Many clicks/steps for such a simple action. In my dream , starting the download job in your remote computer should be as easy as starting it locally.

I am actually surprised this idea has not been already implemented neither in popular download applications nor by third parties/developers.

I still think there should be some kind of program/script or, as mouser pointed out, Firefox extension that would associate itself with ed2k://, ftp://, etc. protocols or .torrent files and start the download in the remote computer in the background either by forwarding the request to a specific service/daemon running in the 'home server' or by starting for example a ssh session and executing the appropiate commands to start the download.

I don't know if programming such kind of script/little program would be too complicated. In the meantime, i will try justice approach

[kae99]

Just FYI, I have bumped into this today:
http://www.androidce...bittorrent-files-wow

It is a specific solution for bittorrent and Android phones, but is quite interesting (watch the embedded video).
They have developed a program that is able to scan a barcode (using the cellphone camera), search for related torrents in Internet and start the bittorrent download remotely at the home server computer. What a useful application!
(Note: Of course, it should only be used with your previously bought material)

The app is the result of a "bounty contest" on this idea. It seems that there is more people noticing the convenience of starting download jobs on the go in your home computer
In their solution, they seem to have use some mechanism to automatically post the downloaded .torrent file to the remote webUI interface, although i don't know the details...

Regards,
kae99