"no peers" fallback strategies

[AskAlexSharov]

Hello.
We have living network of peers for some data. It's self-sustained.
But we would like to create some "fallback" service: if some file has no peers - node can download file from our service.

What options are possible here?

• we can't use existing public seedbox services - because their antivirus destroying our files (because our project is related to crypto-currency area).
• can it be S3 http? or it should be BitTorrent protocol?
• or just create our own seedbox? (better don't use cloud?)
• Do you see another options?

[anacrolix]

The easiest option is webseeding. That's just exposing the torrent files in the right way on a HTTP endpoint. This is well supported in anacrolix/torrent. Add a prefix URL and it will append the info name and file path. There's a BEP that describes the layout.

[AskAlexSharov]

thank you! i did know about such fallback existence - but was not able to find it this morning.
here we go: https://www.bittorrent.org/beps/bep_0019.html - in lib it's MetaInfo.UrlList

[anacrolix]

Do you think some docs would help here? There is also https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/anacrolix/torrent#Torrent.AddWebSeeds.

[AskAlexSharov]

Yes, because WebSeed - it's bittorrent-specific termin. If I don't know WebSeed word - I can't find this feature in sources (I did try to search by http/httpClient/fallback/etc...). Even in bep_19 word WebSeed is not used (only in title) - so, it just doesn't stick to my head.

I would advise just add a bit words to MetaInfo.UrlList field comment.