Playing with MLDonkey

If you’re a non-Windows user, Linux or Mac, whatever, and want a client to connect eDonkey network, probably you’ll try aMule which is a clone of eMule. I’m not saying that aMule sucks, but… it’s just not good enough. Actually we do have another choice, MLDonkey. Know what’s coolest? MLDonkey is a multi-protocol P2P client. In addition to eDonkey, it also supports BitTorrent, HTTP, FTP, FastTrack, etc. Check out the full list.

Ubuntu repository has MLDonkey, but the version is a bit little old. If you don’t mind, it’s easy to get it installed through apt-get utility, of course. I’m going to compile MLDonkey from source code, because it’s also easy to do the compilation.

Firstly install the prerequisites to make your enviroment ready for compiling:

$ sudo apt-get install ocaml libbz2-dev libgd2-xpm-dev libmagic-dev

Then get the source package and compile it:

$ tar jxvf mldonkey-3.0.0.tar.bz2
$ cd mldonkey-3.0.0
$ ./configure
$ make

No necessary to run any command like ‘sudo make install’ to finish the installation, because what we need is only one file. It’s mlnet generated after compiling. Just copy it to any place you want, e.g., /usr/local/bin.

$ sudo cp mlnet /usr/local/bin

The installation is done!

Run mlnet to start MLDonkey:

$ mlnet &

A working folder, .mldonkey, is created in the current logged-in user’s home directory during the first running.

Two official ways are provided to interact with MLDonkey:

• CLI via telnet. Default port is 4000. Try telnet localhost 4000
• web interface via browser. Default port is 4080. Try http://localhost:4080

If you dislike both and want a full-function GUI tool, you can try Sancho. CLI is my favorite. The following is a list of common-use commands.

> ?
short help

> ??
long help

> save
save options into the configuration files

> kill
shutdown MLDonkey

> q
exit the CLI admin console

> users
print all MLDonkey users

> whoami
print the current logged-in MLDonkey user

> passwd <thepwd>
change your password

> auth <username> <password>
authicate yourself before executing any directive

> networks
print the enabled networks currently

> disable <num>
disable the specified network

> set client_name <new-client-name>
set the client name

> set allowed_ips “ip1 ip2 ip3″
set which IPs have access to admin consoles.
For example,
> set allowed_ips “127.0.0.1 192.168.0.157″

> set max_hard_download_rate <digit>
set the maximal download rate. 0 means umlimited.
For example,
> set max_hard_download_rate 0

> servers <URL>
load servers from a file or a URL
For example,
> servers http://www.emule.org.cn/server.met

> n <server name or IP> [<port>]
add a new server manually
For example,
> n no1.eserver.emule.org.cn 8080
> n no2.eserver.emule.org.cn 8080

> vm
print the connected servers

> dllink <download-link>
add a download task

> vd
print the downloading tasks

> reshare
check shared files for removal

By default the downloaded files can be found in $HOME/.mldonkey/incoming/files or $HOME/.mldonkey/incoming/directories. Just move the downloaded files out, then run the above ‘reshare’ command.

BTW, I’m using Ubuntu Linux 9.04 when playing MLDonkey.