Aria2: CLI downloader for HTTP, FTP, torrents, metalinks | Hacker News Reader

Aria2: CLI downloader for HTTP, FTP, torrents, metalinks

aria2.github.io

179 pointsnickysielicki40 comments

So excited it moved to github and away from SourceForge

By far my go to app for downloading anything. aria2c [link] downloads anything and is also the fastest bit torrent app I have ever used.

EDIT: I also use aria2c for the backend of my Arch Linux package manager pacman. Gives me multiple of connections per host and speeds up updates by at least two folds. https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=192072

2nd EDIT: Windows works but I have had better luck with uGet portable app for Windows.

http://ugetdm.com/downloads-windows

this pacman + aria2 is awesome. had no idea that was even possible.

The only issue I had with this setup was that if a download got cancelled, it would start failing throwing package integrity errors because aria downloads directly to /var/cache/pacman/pkg/package_name.tar.xz rather than a .part file which is copied upon completion. The built-in downloader of pacman ensures this is done right.

uGet can use aria2 as its backend too

aria2c is the backend for uGet

"By far my go to app for downloading anything. aria2c [link] downloads anything"

Just to clarify, when you say "anything" do you mean things like soundcloud and youtube ?

Is this an alternative to a tool like youtube-dl ?

Good question, I'd like to know too.

aria is also controllable by Python via XML-RPC - seen that in the docs, on my stack to try, could be useful.

aria2c supports HTTP(S), FTP, SFTP and Torrent/Metalink.

Many applications (youtube-dl through --external-downloader) can use aria2c as a "downloader backend".

aria2c + https://github.com/ziahamza/webui-aria2 offers a very fast, portable and simple download manager.

Probably not quite what you meant (since it still require youtube-dl), but youtube-dl has built-in support for downloading using aria2c as a backend.

    youtube-dl --external-downloader=aria2c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

I now have a new alias thank you!

For those who would prefer a graphical interface for their multithreaded downloading, I highly recommend webui-aria2, which (of course) uses aria2c in it's backend: https://github.com/ziahamza/webui-aria2

It's super easy to install locally since it's basically a JS app in a couple of HTML files. For ease of use, I have a shortcut to the index.html in my browser and launch aria2 on startup from my .zshrc.

Agreed webui-aria2 is great. I wrote a little launcher script for it that configures the RPC secret, download directory, and other settings, starts aria2c, then opens up the WebUI in a Chrome kiosk. https://github.com/brbsix/aria2-webui-launcher/blob/master/a...

If they add a "--download-over-tor" flag[1] this would be awesome.

[1]: Yes we all know that it's not a good idea to download torrents and other large content over tor (for various technical and non-technical reasons) but it'd sure be convenient!

Is there a reason torify isn't sufficient?

Haven't heard of torify before but it looks cool. Does the app being invoked by it have to be able to use a SOCKS proxy or does it auto wrap all socket connections?

It auto-wraps them using tsocks.

I've looked into this in the past and was not successful. `torify` doesn't work and aria2 doesn't have any option for configuring a SOCKS5 proxy. There's been quite a bit of discussion about this.[0]

A cursory search shows some people have recently found success with `--async-dns=false`[1]. Doesn't work for me, but maybe I'll try with the latest release and see if that changes things.

I eventually got aria2c to work over TOR with ProxyChains, but it's really not a fun process.

[0]: https://github.com/tatsuhiro-t/aria2/issues/153

[1]: https://github.com/tatsuhiro-t/aria2/issues/613

Haven't heard of this tool until now. Say I already use wget (or curl) for command line downloads. Besides the ability to download torrents, why should I switch?

The biggest feature is probably being able to download a file from multiple URLs (or with multiple connections, if the server imposes a per-connection speed limit) at the same time

I for one prefer aria2c's ability to download a huge file via multiple parallel streams using the -x switch. AFAIK wget doesn't have this feature.

Try prozilla

Aria2 is great.

I also used Axel[1] a lot (its lightweight) during my college days where we were behind an http proxy and increasing the number of connections would result in increased download speeds.

[1] http://axel.alioth.debian.org/

I've been using axel for a while and it worked great so far. I'd suggest it if you re looking for a linghtweight chunked downloader.

Wish it could be able to download dropbox/wetransfer/hitail/etc links.

I imagine it'd be quite hard to go through that JavaScript crap; I can barely do it myself with a browser. :)

apt-fast is a very nice wrapper for apt-get / aptitude that uses aria2c to download packages MUCH faster. (It also automatically calls itself with sudo if you wish, i.e. automatically requests the sudo password if needed.)

https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast

I wish it was written as an apt-method, or even a replacement for /var/lib/methods/http. I suspect the lack of documentation for apt methods has made this unlikely.

The Debian base is in many respects beautiful, but it also seems quite fossilized and rigid to me.

Debian do not like like such things as it puts pressure on the mirrors: https://lists.debian.org/deity/2015/08/msg00379.html

The message mentions "httpredir.debian.org" as a "good and nice quasi-replacement". I use it myself - it also results in pleasingly speedy apt downloads, and has the additional advantages of official support and requiring no setup beyond a line in sources.lst.

I'm not going to try this, but it seems to me that apt-fast and http-redir could be combined. I wonder how fast that would go...

Aria2 is awesome. Probably the most commonly typed in command (besides ls) on my home computer is "aria2c (xclip -o)".

Then you probably want to alias it.

Thanks to fish shell, it's usually only a C-f away. Or quite often even arrow up away. :).

I actually due have a alias for exactly this

dlit (down load it)

http://tuxdiary.com/2016/01/28/dsdownload/ is also good

Did anyone had luck seeding aria's DHT for downloading magnet links?

Back when I used aria it seemed to work with the default one mentioned in the man page (I think).

git-annex uses aria2 for torrent downloads

In case anyone wanted it from the source, here is Joey Hess's announcement from a little more than a year ago:

http://git-annex.branchable.com/devblog/day_239-240__bittorr...

And reference to git-annex's bittorrent special remote:

http://git-annex.branchable.com/special_remotes/bittorrent/

aria2 will eventually support chunked transfers over sftp, too - then I can get rid of lftp.

aria2c is absolutely awesome for dev ops.

A lot of regular download clients got problems if you have 1000+ servers downloading 100MB+ and hit a lot of stragglers. I find aria2c very reliable and performant comparing to other client.

Running on Windows too now! :)

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