Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
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Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#2Cool. After reading your README, the "post-part" hook is the most interesting part for me. Chunk-level hooks make it easier to plug into things like rclone or other workflows.
As you mentioned, the single .rapel-state.json file tracks all chunk metadata. Does that state also pin the origin file identity while resuming, so it can detect if the remote file changed between sessions?
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#3Is this like a modern GetRight?
GetRight is possibly the piece of software that planted the seed of fascination with computers and software in my head at a young age. It blew my mind that someone had made an app that could fix Internet Explorer dropping downloads mid-way through on my dial-up connection if my Nanna sent a fax to my Mum whilst I was on the PC.
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#4A little bit of a nit - when tracking progress you can ditch the mutex by using atomic integers for the download progress. Instead of using locks, your test for a chunk being done becomes something like "downloaded == chunk_size".
You also never call UpdateChunkProgress, FYI! The code is a little confusing to read because of that dead variable, at first I thought that chunks are never resumed. ProgressTracker and State/ChunkInfo do similar things, if I were in your shoes I'd make it so that there's clear ownership over where progress is actually tracked.
...I'd probably move State to be saved on the _start_ of the download, have it solely be responsible for tracking the arguments that the download was called with. Rename it to DownloadArguments, delete all the runtime state tracking, as it's already inferred by the downloader on start.
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#5Is this like a modern GetRight? GetRight is possibly the piece of software that planted the seed of fascination with computers and software in my head at a young age. It blew my mind that someone had made an app that could fix Internet Explorer dropping downloads mid-way through on my dial-up connection if my Nanna sent a fax to my Mum whilst I was on the PC.
Same, I think I went with Flashget.
I seem to recall that I'm fascinated with NetAnts too, but went with Flashget for some reason.
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#6Looks like fun but also a half implemented BitTorrent client.
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#7[flagged]
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#8How is this any different than existing solutions like aria2? I'd also like to see some benchmarks for the same download using the same chunk size settings with Rapel vs aria2.
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#9[dead]
Re: Show HN: Rapel – chunked resumable downloads in unstable networks
#10How is this any different than existing solutions like aria2? I'd also like to see some benchmarks for the same download using the same chunk size settings with Rapel vs aria2.
I tried using existing solutions like aria2, but rapel is built to work on constrained machines with limited storage, like a raspberry pi running 24/7. You can use the post-part argument so that after downloading a chunk, you can do something with it (eg. upload it) and remove it afterward. Then, on another bigger machine, download the chunks and merge them