P2P Decentralized Network with BitTorrent Protocol

Contributors:

• Ramy Fekry
• Robert Clarkson
• William Lew
• Benjamin Lewis
• John Freirez

Recording

• file: screen_recording.mp4
• link: https://youtu.be/iH-XQL5xXY8

Project Description:

• This project was an Implementation of a BitTorrent P2P file sharing network protocol. We established connection using a UDP socket between the Trackers, then used TCP sockets to communicate between other Peers to upload and download files. We implemented a file manager to support the uploading and downloading process by arranging fragmented data. The file manager breaks down the file as blocks/pieces of data that's being transferred between peers, then reconstructs the blocks/pieces at the destination.

Each Peer has a Tracker, Client, Server, Torrent, Message, Downloader, FileManger, and Uploader.

Libraries Used (To run this program, these libraries must be installed):

• time ( to slow down the network for debugging )
• shutil ( to move file to another directory )
• htbps ( to show the progress bar uploading )
• socket ( to send UDP messages as well as create a persistant connection )
• pickle ( to encode and decode data sent through TCP )
• os ( for file IO )
• threading ( to move processes off the main thread )
• hashlib ( to hash pointers & torrent info )
• bitarray ( to create & modify bitfields )
• uuid ( to generate a unique id for each peer with a low chance of collision )
• bencodepy ( to encode & decode UDP messages )
• math
• builtins

Python version and compatibility issues:

• Python version 3.8, "anything lower than 3.8 might cause an error"

How to run

• To properly test and run you must have two different machines/computers on the same local network.
• Both will have to run peer.py, 1 after the other.

python peer.py

• please check the video recording:
  • file: screen_recording.mp4
  • Link: https://youtu.be/iH-XQL5xXY8

Challenges

• Needs multiple machine to properly test, weren't able to test with just one, even tried to use a VM to test but still no luck we needed a different machine.
• While one team member had access to 2 computers, no team member had access to 3 computers. Therefore, the team was unable to test properly with 3 peers connected.
• To complete this project we broke the the project into it's major components and distributed them amongst members.
• BitTorrent implementation was difficult to grasp. Therefore, to make progress the team took a few liberties to implement certain functionalities in their own unique way. While this may break from the BitTorrent protocol it did strengthen each member's grasp of P2P.