Distributed Download Manager

A small distributed download manager to help bypass device-specific bandwidth limitations.

Architecture

The download manager consists of 3 parts:

• Tracker server: An always-on server, stores a list of available peer servers which can be fetched by the peer client
• Peer client: Initiates the download, receives a list of available peer servers from the tracker and splits the download among them, and finally merges all the downloaded chunks together
• Peer server: Informs tracker of its availability, receives chunks to download from peer server, downloads and sends back chunks

Usage

• Setup a config file (Sample config). The config should contain:

  • TRACKER_IP -> IP address of the tracker (Should always be running)
  • TRACKER_PORT -> Port of the tracker
  • URL -> URL of file to be downloaded
  • PATH -> Path to save output file (on peer client)
  • CLIENT_SERVER_PORT -> Port for communication b/w client and server (can be hardcoded)
  • CLIENT_TRACKER_PORT -> Port for communication b/w client and tracker (can be hardcoded)
  • SERVER_CLIENT_PORT -> Port for communication b/w server and client (can be hardcoded)
  • SERVER_TRACKER_PORT -> Port for communication b/w server and tracker (can be hardcoded)

• Run the tracker, all the peer servers (other machines) and then the peer client:

python3 tracker.py
python3 peer_server.py
python3 peer_client.py