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From the project home page:

  aria2 is a lightweight multi-protocol & multi-source command-line download utility. It supports HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, BitTorrent and Metalink. aria2 can be manipulated via built-in JSON-RPC and XML-RPC interfaces.

## Installation

Install the aria2 package.

To use aria2 as a daemon, you can write a systemd user unit.

## Configuration

### aria2.conf

aria2 looks at `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/aria2/aria2.conf` for a set of global configuration options by default. This behavior can be modified with the `--conf-path` switch:

The following example downloads `aria2.example.rar` using the options specified in the configuration file `/file/aria2.rapidshare`

    $ aria2c --conf-path=/file/aria2.rapidshare http://rapidshare.com/files/12345678/aria2.example.rar

If `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/aria2/aria2.conf` exists and the options specified in `/file/aria2.rapidshare` are desired, the `--no-conf` switch must be appended to the command:

The following example does not use the default configuration file and downloads `aria2.example.rar` using the options specified in the configuration file `/file/aria2.rapidshare`

    $ aria2c --no-conf --conf-path=/file/aria2.rapidshare http://rapidshare.com/files/12345678/aria2.example.rar

If `$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/aria2/aria2.conf` does not yet exist and you wish to simplify the management of configuration options:

    $ touch $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/aria2/aria2.conf

### Example aria2.conf

    continue
    dir=${HOME}/Desktop
    file-allocation=none
    input-file=${HOME}/.aria2/input.conf
    log-level=warn
    max-connection-per-server=4
    min-split-size=5M
    on-download-complete=exit

This is essentially the same as if running the following:

    $ aria2c --dir=${HOME}/Desktop --file-allocation=none --input-file=${HOME}/.aria2/input.conf --on-download-complete=exit --log-level=warn FILE

Note: The example aria2.conf above may incorrectly use the $HOME variable. Some users have reported the curly brace syntax to explicitly create a separate ${HOME} subdirectory in the aria2 working directory. Such a directory may be difficult to traverse as bash will consider it to be the $HOME environment variable. For now, it is recommended to use absolute path names in aria2.conf.

#### Option details

- `continue`: Continue downloading a partially downloaded file if a corresponding control file exists.
- `dir=${HOME}/Desktop`: Store the downloaded file(s) in `~/Desktop`.
- `file-allocation=none`: Do not pre-allocate disk space before downloading begins. (Default: prealloc) 1
- `input-file=${HOME}/.aria2/input.conf`: Download a list of line, or TAB separated URIs found in `~/.aria2/input.conf`
- `log-level=warn`: Set log level to output warnings and errors only. (Default: debug)
- `max-connection-per-server=4`: Set a maximum of four (4) connections to each server per file. (Default: 1)
- `min-split-size=5M`: Only split the file if the size is larger than 2*5MB = 10MB. (Default: 20M)
- `on-download-complete=exit`: Run the `exit` command and exit the shell once the download session is complete.

##### Example input file #1

Download `aria2-1.10.0.tar.bz2` from two separate sources to `~/Desktop` before merging as `aria2-1.10.0.tar.bz2`

    http://aria2.net/files/stable/aria2-1.10.0/aria2-1.10.0.tar.bz2    http://sourceforge.net/projects/aria2/files/stable/aria2-1.10.0/aria2-1.10.0.tar.bz2

##### Example input file #2

Download `aria2-1.9.5.tar.bz2` and save to `/file/old` as `aria2.old.tar.bz2`

    http://aria2.net/files/stable/aria2-1.9.5/aria2-1.9.5.tar.bz2
      dir=/file/old
      out=aria2.old.tar.bz2

Download `aria2-1.10.0.tar.bz2` and save to `~/Desktop` as `aria2.new.tar.bz2`

    http://aria2.net/files/stable/aria2-1.10.0/aria2-1.10.0.tar.bz2
      out=aria2.new.tar.bz2

#### Additional notes

1 `file-allocation=falloc`: Recommended for newer file systems such as ext4 (with extents support), btrfs or XFS as it allocates large files (GB) almost instantly. Do not use falloc with legacy file systems such as ext3 as prealloc consumes approximately the same amount of time as standard allocation would while locking the aria2 process from proceeding to download.

Tip: See `aria2c --help=#all` and aria2c(1) § OPTIONS for a complete list of configuration options.

### Example aria2.rapidshare

    http-user=USER_NAME
    http-passwd=PASSWORD
    allow-overwrite=true
    dir=/file/Downloads
    file-allocation=falloc
    enable-http-pipelining=true
    input-file=/file/input.rapidshare
    log-level=error
    max-connection-per-server=2
    summary-interval=120

#### Option details

- `http-user=USER_NAME`: Set HTTP username as USER_NAME for password-protected logins. This affects all URIs.
- `http-passwd=PASSWORD`: Set HTTP password as PASSWORD for password-protected logins. This affects all URIs.
- `allow-overwrite=true`: Restart download if a corresponding control file does not exist. (Default: false)
- `dir=/file/Downloads`: Store the downloaded file(s) in `/file/Downloads`.
- `file-allocation=falloc`: Call posix_fallocate(3) to allocate disk space before downloading begins. (Default: prealloc)
- `enable-http-pipelining=true`: Enable HTTP/1.1 pipelining to overcome network latency and to reduce network load. (Default: false)
- `input-file=/file/input.rapidshare`: Download a list of single line of TAB separated URIs found in `/file/input.rapidshare`
- `log-level=error`: Set log level to output errors only. (Default: debug)
- `max-connection-per-server=2`: Set a maximum of two (2) connections to each server per file. (Default: 1)
- `summary-interval=120`: Output download progress summary every 120 seconds. (Default: 60) 2

#### Additional notes

- Because `aria2.rapidshare` the contains a username and password, it is advisable to set permissions on the file to 600, or similar.

    $ cd /file
    $ chmod 600 /file/aria2.rapidshare
    $ ls -l
    total 128M
    -rw------- 1 arch users  167 Aug 20 00:00 aria2.rapidshare

2 `summary-interval=0`: Suppresses download progress summary output and may improve overall performance. Logs will continue to be output according to the value specified in the `log-level` option.

Tip: The example configuration file can also be applied to Hotfile, DepositFiles, et.al.
Note: Command-line options always take precedence over options listed in a configuration file.

### Example aria2.bittorrent

    bt-seed-unverified
    max-overall-upload-limit=1M
    max-upload-limit=128K
    seed-ratio=5.0
    seed-time=240

#### Option details

- `bt-seed-unverified=false`: Do not check the hash of the file(s) before seeding. (Default: true)
- `max-overall-upload-limit=1M`: Set maximum overall upload speed to 1MB/sec. (Default: 0)
- `max-upload-limit=128K`: Set maximum upload speed per torrent to 128K/sec. (Default: 0)
- `seed-ratio=5.0`: Seed completed torrents until share ratio reaches 5.0. (Default: 1.0)
- `seed-time=240`: Seed completed torrents for 240 minutes.

Note: If both `seed-ratio` and `seed-time` are specified, seeding ends when at least one of the conditions is satisfied.

### Example aria2.daemon

This configuration can be used to start aria2 as a service. It can be used in conjunction with several of the frontends listed below. Note that rpc-user and rpc-pass are deprecated, but most frontends have not been ported to the new authentication yet. Do not forget to change user, password and Download directory.

    continue
    daemon=true
    dir=/home/aria2/Downloads
    file-allocation=falloc
    log-level=warn
    max-connection-per-server=4
    max-concurrent-downloads=3
    max-overall-download-limit=0
    min-split-size=5M
    enable-http-pipelining=true

    enable-rpc=true
    rpc-listen-all=true
    rpc-user=rpcuser
    rpc-passwd=rpcpass

## Frontends

Note: Settings implemented in frontends do not affect `aria2`'s own configuration, and it is uncertain whether the different UIs reuse `aria2` configuration if a custom one has been made. Users should ensure their desired parameters are effectively implemented within selected tools and that they are stored persistently (uGet for example has its own `aria2`'s command line which sticks across reboots).

### Web UIs

Note: These frontends need `aria2c` to be started with `--enable-rpc` in order to work. They are meant to run on your local computer, not on a remote server that downloads using aria

- Webui — Html frontend for aria2.

  https://github.com/ziahamza/webui-aria2 || webui-aria2-gitAUR

- aria2rpc — Command line tool for connecting to a remote instance of `aria2c`. If `aria2c` is installed it can be found under `/usr/share/doc/aria2/xmlrpc/aria2rpc`.

  https://github.com/tatsuhiro-t/aria2/blob/master/doc/xmlrpc/aria2rpc || aria2

- AriaNg — Pure HTML frontend for aria2. (There is also a desktop client)

  https://github.com/mayswind/AriaNg || ariang-gitAUR, ariang-native-electron-gitAUR

### Other UIs

Note: These frontends do not need `aria2c` to be started with `--enable-rpc` to function.

- aria2fe — A GUI for the CLI-based aria2 download utility.

  https://sourceforge.net/projects/aria2fe/ || aria2feAUR

- Persepolis — Graphical front-end for aria2 download manager with lots of features. Supports HTTP and FTP.

  https://github.com/persepolisdm/ || persepolis

- uGet — Feature-rich GTK/CLI download manager which can use aria2 as a back-end by enabling a built-in plugin.

  https://ugetdm.com || uget

- Motrix — Full-featured download manager that supports downloading HTTP, FTP, BitTorrent, Magnet based on aria2

  https://github.com/agalwood/Motrix || motrixAUR

## Tips and tricks

### Download the packages without installing them

Just use the command below:

    # pacman -Sp packages | aria2c -i -

`pacman -Sp` lists the URLs of the packages on stdout, instead of downloading them, then `|` pipes it to the next command. Finally, the `-i` in `aria2c -i -` switch to aria2c means that the URLs for files to be downloaded should be read from the file specified, but if `-` is passed, then read the URLs from stdin.

### pacman XferCommand

See pacman/Tips and tricks#aria2.

### Changing the User Agent

Some sites may filter the requests based on your User Agent, since aria2 is not a well known downloader, it may be good to use a most known downloader or browser as the Aria's User Agent. Just use the `-U` option like this:

    $ aria2c -UWget http://some-url-to-download/file.xyz

You can use whatever you want, like -UMozilla/5.0 and so on.

### Using aria2 with makepkg

You can use aria2 instead of curl to download source files, just change the `DLAGENTS` variable as follows:

    /etc/makepkg.conf

    [...]
    DLAGENTS=('ftp::/usr/bin/aria2c -UWget -s4 %u -o %o'
              'http::/usr/bin/aria2c -UWget -s4 %u -o %o'
              'https::/usr/bin/aria2c -UWget -s4 %u -o %o'
              'rsync::/usr/bin/rsync --no-motd -z %u %o'
              'scp::/usr/bin/scp -C %u %o')
    [...]

Note: Use the `-UWget` option to change the user agent to Wget. It may prevent problems when downloading from sites that filters the requests based on the user agent to provide different responses on what the users uses to access the URL. Since aria2 is a lesser known downloader it may be recognized by the site as a browser instead of a downloader, so changing the user agent to Wget may fix it in most cases

### Using aria2 as a Daemon

To use aria2 as a daemon, you should write a systemd user unit. For example:

    ~/.config/systemd/user/aria2cd.service

    [Unit]
    Description=aria2 Daemon

    [Service]
    Type=forking
    ExecStart=/usr/bin/aria2c --conf-path=/path/to/conf

    [Install]
    WantedBy=default.target

#Example aria2.daemon shows an example configuration file.

### Seed a torrent with aria2

To seed an already downloaded torrent, use the `--check-integrity` option:

    $ aria2c --check-integrity=true --seed-ratio=0.0 --dir="/path/to/iso" "/path/to/torrent/archlinux-2020.03.01-x86_64.iso.torrent"

Specifying `--seed-ratio=0.0` will seed the file forever.

## See also

- aria2 manual - Official site
- aria2 usage examples - Official site

Categories:

- Download utilities
- BitTorrent