Compilation Raspberry Pi OS and DietPi

Raspberry Pi OS is the most popular Linux distribution built for Raspberry Pi hardware.

DietPi is a refined Linux distribution for ARM SoCs such as Raspberry Pi 3 B+ and ASUS Tinker Board.

Both are based on Debian. Debian 9.0 ships with a patched version of an older qBittorrent-nox release (4.1.5). qBittorrent 4.3.x has many improvements to the webUI component which are of particular use for headless operation for example RSS handling.

This guide outlines the steps needed to compile qBittorrent-nox 4.3.x and run it as a service. Both DietPi and Raspberry Pi OS provide pre-compiled qBittorrent using either dietpi-software or apt. Use this guide if you want to run the most recent qBittorrent (and libtorrent-rasterbar).

This guide was made possible by the authors of the Debian/Ubuntu compilation guide and Guide on running qBittorrent as a service. A few DietPi-specific amendments are included.

Table of Contents

• Dependencies
• Compiling Libtorrent
  • Get the source code
    • A. git clone from repository
    • B. Download the latest release
  • Compile Libtorrent
  • Add Libtorrent as a system library
• Compiling qBittorrent-nox
  • Get the source code
    • A. git clone from repository
    • B. Download the latest release
  • Compile qBittorrent-nox
• Running qBittorrent-nox on boot
  • Add user for qBittorrent-nox service
  • Create systemd service file
  • Run and check systemd service status
• Updating qBittorrent-nox
  • Updating an already compiled version of qBittorrent-nox
  • Checking the version to verify that the binary got updated

Dependencies

You will first need to install various tools and libraries needed for compilation.

sudo apt install build-essential pkg-config automake libtool libc6-dev libboost-dev libboost-system-dev libboost-chrono-dev libboost-random-dev libssl-dev qtbase5-dev qttools5-dev-tools libqt5svg5-dev zlib1g-dev

If you choose to retrieve source code using git clone, then also sudo apt install git.

Compiling Libtorrent

DietPi's and Raspberry Pi OS's repositories include older versions of Libtorrent. You will need to compile Libtorrent 1.2.x to get qBittorrent-nox 4.2.x running. Both methods below outline how to install Libtorrent 1.2.x for use with qBittorrent-nox 4.3.x (and likely later versions).

Get the source code

Two versions of Libtorrent are currently maintained: 1.2.x and 2.0.x.

Since release 4.2.0, qBittorrent makes use of the 1.2.x version, so get the 1.2.x release.

To get the Libtorrent source code, either:

A. git clone ...

B. wget ...

A. git clone from repository

git clone https://github.com/arvidn/libtorrent.git
cd libtorrent
# select the latest release tag
git checkout $(git tag | grep v1\.2.\. | sort -t _ -n -k 3 | tail -n 1)

B. Download the latest release

wget https://github.com/arvidn/libtorrent/archive/libtorrent-1_2_14.zip
unzip libtorrent-1_2_14.zip
cd libtorrent-libtorrent-1_2_14

Compile Libtorrent

./autotool.sh
./configure --with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf --with-libiconv CXXFLAGS="-std=c++17"
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

out of memory (OOM)

If OOM errors occur, add a swap file.

sudo dd if=/dev/zero of=/.swapfile bs=1M count=1024
sudo mkswap /.swapfile
sudo swapon /.swapfile
sudo swapon -s  # check swap is activated
make
# assuming the prior command succeeded
sudo swapoff /.swapfile
sudo rm /.swapfile

(Those commands were copied from here.)

One example manifestation of an OOM error on Raspberry Pi OS looks like:

$ make
...
make[1]: Entering directory '/tmp/libtorrent-libtorrent_1_2_0/src'
  CXX      libtorrent_rasterbar_la-session_impl.lo
g++: internal compiler error: Killed (program cc1plus)

Add Libtorrent as a system library

You will need to add Libtorrent as a system library or qBittorrent-nox won't run after you compile it.

Create a file sudo nano /etc/ld.so.conf.d/libtorrent.conf with contents /usr/local/lib.

Run sudo ldconfig afterward.

Check if your LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable is set and the path /usr/local/lib is included: run env in your terminal and look for LD_LIBRARY_PATH.

If so, you are good to go. If not, add the path to the variable: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:${LD_LIBRARY_PATH}

Compiling qBittorrent-nox

Get the source code

To get the qBittorrent-nox source code, either:

A. git clone ...

B. wget ...

A. git clone from repository

git clone -b v4_3_x https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent
cd qBittorrent

You may select the branch version on the branches page.

B. Download the latest release

wget https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/archive/release-4.3.5.zip
unzip release-4.3.5.zip
cd qBittorrent-release-4.3.5

Compile qBittorrent-nox

./configure --disable-gui --enable-systemd --with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf CXXFLAGS="-std=c++17"
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

NOTE: Review Ubuntu/Debian compilation guide if you want to run qBittorrent with a GUI.

The binary should be located at /usr/local/bin/qbittorrent-nox. If qbittorrent-nox was installed using apt then that binary will be at /usr/bin/qbittorrent-nox. Do not confuse them!

Web UI access information

• http://localhost:8080
• Username: admin
• Password: adminadmin

qBittorrent-nox is currently installed as a terminal application, which is not optimal for headless use. We now will add qBittorrent-nox as a service.

Running qBittorrent-nox on boot

Add user for qBittorrent-nox service

For Raspberry Pi OS:

sudo useradd -rm qbittorrent -G pi -s /usr/sbin/nologin

For DietPi:

sudo useradd -rm qbittorrent -G dietpi -s /usr/sbin/nologin

Create systemd service file

UPDATE: this may not be necessary if qBittorrent compilation was configured with flag --enable-systemd.

Create a systemd service file sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/qbittorrent.service.

Contents for Raspberry Pi OS:

Description=qBittorrent Daemon Service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=qbittorrent
Group=pi
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/qbittorrent-nox
ExecStop=/usr/bin/killall -w qbittorrent-nox

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Contents for DietPi:

Description=qBittorrent Daemon Service
After=network.target

[Service]
User=qbittorrent
Group=dietpi
ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/qbittorrent-nox
ExecStop=/usr/bin/killall -w qbittorrent-nox

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Run and check systemd service status

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl start qbittorrent
sudo systemctl status qbittorrent

The systemctl status command should show qBittorrent-nox is active (running).

Enable qbittorrent service during boot: sudo systemctl enable qbittorrent.

Updating qBittorrent-nox

Updating an already compiled version of qBittorrent-nox

Get the latest version of qBittorrent using instructions outlined above (git/wget).

Navigate to the qBittorrent directory with the latest release.

sudo systemctl stop qbittorrent
./configure --disable-gui --enable-systemd --with-boost-libdir=/usr/lib/arm-linux-gnueabihf CXXFLAGS="-std=c++17"
make -j$(nproc)
sudo make install

Checking the version to verify that the binary got updated

sudo systemctl stop qbittorrent
/usr/local/bin/qbittorrent-nox --version

If the version has changed then the new version was successfully compiled and installed!

Restart the qbittorrent service: sudo systemctl start qbittorrent.