Make µTorrent execute ftp script to upload files back to your home computer

Not a Powershell script this time, but still a useful one. Let's say you have a MS Windows based server and µTorrent running. How to get the files back to your home computer as fast as possible?

I'm usually more interested in event based programming/scripting, then schedule based. I had some requirements:

• Command line based, 

• All info must be passable in a single command

• Parallel transfers to take full use of bandwidth.

A cygwin compiled lftp was my solution. Along with a bit of VB Scripting to take care of some syntax issues, I arrived with the script below. It supports single file torrents as well as multifile torrents.

Run this program when a torrent finishes:
C:\Utils\Scripts\ftp.vbs %K "%D" "%N" %L "%F"

ftp.vbs:

Dim path,label,cmd,nm,file,tp,host,user,pass,dir,drive,login,lftp,wd, context
host = "myHostOrIP"
user = "myUsername"
pass = "myPassword"
login = user & ":" & pass & "@" & host
lftp = "C:\Utils\lftp\lftp.exe"
wd = "C:\"

tp = WScript.Arguments.Item(0) 'single/multi
dir = WScript.Arguments.Item(1)
drive = LCase(Mid(dir, 1, 1))
path = "/cygdrive/" & drive & Right(dir,Len(dir)-2)
path = Replace(Replace(path,"\","/")," ","\ ")
nm = Replace(Replace(WScript.Arguments.Item(2),"\","/")," ","\ ")
file = path & "/" & Replace(Replace(WScript.Arguments.Item(4),"\","/")," ","\ ")
label = WScript.Arguments.Item(3)

If tp = "single" Then
context = "cd /" & label & "; put " & file
Else
'multifile
context = "mirror -R -v --parallel=3 --depth-first " & path & " /" & label & "/" & nm
End If

cmd = "ftp://" & login & " -e " & chr(34) & "set ftp:nop-interval 1; set net:timeout 5; "& context & "; quit" & chr(34)

Set objShell = CreateObject("Shell.Application")
objShell.ShellExecute lftp, cmd, wd, "runas", 1
Set objShell = Nothing

Note: This solution requires that you have a FTP Server running on your home computer. FileZilla for example.

Powershell v3.0: Invoke-WebRequest

With Powershell v3.0, a handy cmdlet Invoke-WebRequest is available. Kind of like curl/wget for PowerShell. Here are some examples on how to use. I have used httpbin.org which is excellent for testing request and server response: http://www.httpbin.org/

1. cls  
2. function basic()  
3. {  
4.     #preemtive authentication  
5.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"basic-auth/" + $username + "/" + $password)  
6.     $encoded =  [System.Convert]::ToBase64String([System.Text.Encoding]::UTF8.GetBytes($username+":"+$password ))  
7.     $headers = @{Authorization = "Basic "+$encoded}  
8.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Headers $headers  
9.     $r.Content  
10. }  
11. function basic2()  
12. {  
13.     #server will respond with 401 on first attempt, then Powershell will add the credentials and retry  
14.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"basic-auth/" + $username + "/" + $password)  
15.     $secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force  
16.     $mycreds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($username, $secpasswd)  
17.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Credential $mycreds  
18.     $r.Content  
19. }  
20. function digest()  
21. {  
22.     #server will respond with 401 on first attempt, then Powershell will add the credentials   
23.     #and retry based on header info from first attempt  
24.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"digest-auth/auth/" + $username + "/" + $password)  
25.     $secpasswd = ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force  
26.     $mycreds = New-Object System.Management.Automation.PSCredential ($username, $secpasswd)  
27.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Credential $mycreds  
28.     $r.Content  
29. }  
30. function response()  
31. {  
32.     #Make server send back a custom header  
33.     $myheader = "myheader"  
34.     $myvalue = "myvalue"  
35.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"response-headers")  
36.     $headers = @{$myheader = $myvalue}  
37.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Body $headers  
38.     $r.Headers  
39. }  
40. function ip()  
41. {  
42.     #returns IP address of calling client  
43.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"ip")  
44.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri  
45.     $parsed = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $r.Content  
46.     $parsed.origin  
47. }  
48. function headers()  
49. {  
50.     #httpbin will in this case return headers as payload  
51.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"headers")  
52.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri  
53.     $parsed = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $r.Content  
54.     $parsed.headers  
55. }  
56. function setcookies()  
57. {  
58.     #receive Set-Cookies header from servver  
59.     $cookiename = "mycookie"  
60.     $cookievalue = "myvalue"  
61.     $cookies = @{$cookiename = $cookievalue}  
62.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"cookies/set")  
63.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Body $cookies  
64.     $session.Cookies.GetCookies($uri) | Select-Object Name,Value  
65. }  
66. function getcookies()  
67. {  
68.     #check that we send cookies correctly  
69.     $cookiename1 = "mycookie"  
70.     $cookievalue1 = "myvalue"  
71.   
72.     $cookiename2 = "anothercookie"  
73.     $cookievalue2 = "anothervalue"  
74.   
75.     $cookies = @{$cookiename1 = $cookievalue1; $cookiename2 = $cookievalue2}  
76.   
77.     Add-Type -AssemblyName Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.Utility  
78.   
79.     #Cookies  
80.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"cookies")  
81.     $cc = New-Object System.Net.CookieContainer  
82.     foreach ($c in $cookies.Keys)  
83.     {  
84.         $cookie = New-Object System.Net.Cookie $c, $cookies[$c], $uri.AbsolutePath, $uri.Host  
85.         $cc.Add($cookie)  
86.     }  
87.       
88.   
89.     #Sessionvariable  
90.     $session = New-Object Microsoft.PowerShell.Commands.WebRequestSession  
91.     $session.Cookies = $cc  
92.   
93.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -WebSession $session  
94.     $session.Cookies.GetCookies($uri) | Select-Object Name,Value  
95.       
96.     #change cookievalue and send it back  
97.     $session.Cookies.GetCookies($uri)[$cookiename1].Value = "valuehaschanged"  
98.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -WebSession $session  
99.     $session.Cookies.GetCookies($uri) | Select-Object Name,Value  
100. }  
101. function post()  
102. {  
103.     #sends data with http post  
104.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"post")  
105.     $postvars = @{post1 = "value1";post2 = "value2";post3 = "value3";}  
106.     #or $postvars = "post1=value1&post2=value2&post3=value3"  
107.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Method Post -Body $postvars  
108.     $parsed = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $r.Content  
109.     $parsed.form  
110. }  
111. function get()  
112. {  
113.     #sends data with http get  
114.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"get?get1=value1&get2=value2&get3=value3")  
115.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri  
116.     $parsed = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $r.Content  
117.     $parsed.args  
118. }  
119. function get2()  
120. {  
121.     #sends data with http get  
122.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"get")  
123.     $getvars = @{get1 = "value1";get2 = "value2";get3 = "value3";}  
124.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -Body $getvars  
125.     $parsed = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $r.Content  
126.     $parsed.args  
127. }  
128. function status([int16] $status)  
129. {  
130.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"status/"+$status.ToString())  
131.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri  
132.     $r.Content  
133. }  
134. function useragent([string] $ua)  
135. {  
136.     $uri = New-Object System.Uri ($baseuri+"user-agent")  
137.     $r = Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $uri.AbsoluteUri -UserAgent $ua  
138.     $parsed = ConvertFrom-Json -InputObject $r.Content  
139.     $parsed | Select-Object user-agent  
140. }  
141. $username = "myuser"  
142. $password = "mypass"  
143. $useragent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:15.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/15.0"  
144. #httpbin(1): HTTP Request & Response Service  
145. $baseuri = "http://www.httpbin.org/"  
146.   
147. #useragent $useragent  
148. #post  
149. #get  
150. #get2  
151. #getcookies  
152. #setcookies  
153. #headers  
154. #basic  
155. #basic2  
156. #status 404  
157. #digest  
158. #response  
159. #ip