With BTFS (bittorrent filesystem) you can mount any .torrent file or magnet link and use it as a read-only directory in your file tree. The contents of the files will be downloaded on-demand as they are read by applications.
ALSO READ HOW TO: Easily Mount Remote Filesystems on Linux, macOS and Windows with SSHFS
NOTE: FSM does not promote piracy. The torrent used in this tutorial was downloaded from archive.org, where you can also watch the movie.
HOW TO INSTALL
- Debian/Ubuntu –
sudo apt-get install btfs - Arch Linux –
sudo pacman -S btfs - Gentoo –
emerge -av btfs - macOS – using Homebrew
brew install btfs
HOW TO USE
1. Download the .torrent file on your machine
2. Create a folder that will be a mount point for your .torrent file. ( e.g. mkdir torrent )
3. Mount the .torrent file with btfs path_to_torrent_file mount_point
4. Once the .torrent file has been mounted you can use tols like ls, cat and cp. If the .torrent file is a video you can play it with mpv name_of_the_file or vlc name_of_the_file.
NOTE: you can also use a GUI file manager ( like PCmanFM/Dolphin/Kursader/Thunar etc on Linux and Finder on macOS ) to browse, play or copy the contents of the .torrent file.
HOW TO UNMOUNT
- Linux –
fusermount -u mount_point( e.gfusermount -u torrent) - macOS –
umount mount_point( eg.umount torrent)
NOTE: you will have to cd out of the mount folder first
For more info on btfs check out the project on Github.
