FAQ aMule-es

F.A.Q de aMule

por Jacobo221 (Traducido por KNO)

Incompleto

¿Qué es aMule?

aMule es un cliente multiplataforma para la red de compatición de archivos ED2K basado en el cliente de windows eMule.
aMule comenzó en Agosto de 2004 como una variante de xMule, que es una variante de lMule.

Actualmente soporta Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, Windows, MacOS X adn X-Box en ordenadores de 32 y 64 bits. Hay que señalar que las versiones para MacOS X y Windows todavía no están preparadas para el uso general.

aMule pretende ser tan fácil de usar y con las mismas carácterísticas que eMule y pretende mantener la mísma estética que eMule, para que los usuarios familiarizados con aMule o eMule puedan cambiar entre ellos de forma fácil.

Como aMule está basado en el código de eMule, las nuevas carácterísticas de eMule que son añadidas a eMule pronto lo son también en aMule, así que sus usuarios pueden estár en la cresta de la ola en cuanto a clientes ED2K.

La merjor parte es, que está desarrollado por un gran equipo de desarrolladores que lo intentan hacer más fácil de usar (si es posible), asi que entra en el canal #amule de irc.freenode.net o visita de amule si tienes alguna sugerencia, pregunta, fallo, parche o cualquier otra cosa que pienses sobre el.

Si estás interesado en unirte al equípo de desarrollo por favor contacta con nostros a través de de amule o en el canal de IRC.

¿Cómo veo los créditos de un cliente?

Puedes ver los créditos de cualquier cliente (los créditos que tu le debes) pinchando con el botón derecho sobre su nombre y seleccionando "Mostrar Detalles". No se muestra un solo valor, si no que puedes ver el total de datos que el cliente te ha enviado o el Modificador de Créditos (DE/SU Modificador). En la misma ventana, si ese cliente está en tu cola de subida, puedes ver su Clasificación y Puntuación.

¿Qué significan los colores de la barra de progreso?

En la lista de descargas:
Rojo: Las Partes(Chunks) en rojo, son partes que no se han encontrado en la presente sesión.
Azul: Las Partes en azul son partes de las que se tiene al menos una fuente. Cuanto mas oscuro es el azul mas fuentes están disponibles.
Amarillo: Las Partes en amarillo son partes que están siendo descargadas en este mismo momento.
Negro: Las Partes en negro son partes que ya han sido descargadas y verificadas.
Verde: Cuando un archivo está en verde, significa que el archivo ha sido completamente descargado y correctamente verificado (asi que debe de estar en el directorio Incoming).
En la lista de descargas extendida (se puede ver haciendo doble click en una transferencia):
Negro: Parte que el cliente tiene y tú no.
Blanco: Parte que el cliente no tiene.
Verde: Parte que el cliente tiene y tú también.
Amarillo: Parte que te estás descargando de ese cliente.
En la lista de subidas:
Negro: El cliente ha completado y verificado esa parte.
Gris: El cliente no tiene esa parte..
Ten en cuenta que no todos los clientes soportan el decir a otros clientes que partes han completado cuando estan subiendo, asi que algunos clientes no tendrán barra.
En la ventana de archivos compartidos:
Rojo: Cuando no se han encontrado fuentes que tengan esa misma parte (a parte de tí, por su puesto).
Azul: Cuanto más oscuro es el azul, más compartida está esa parte.
En la ventana de búsqueda:
Negro: Los archivos en negro son los que solo se ha encontrado una fuente.
Azul: Los archivos que tienen dos o mas fuentes. Cuanto más oscuro mas fuentes se han encontrado.
Rojo: Los archivos que ya están en la cola de bajada.
Verde: Los archivos que ya tienes compartiendo (los has descargado completamente).

¿Qué son todos esos iconos?

[...]

¿Qué significan todos esos números en la columna de fuentes en la ventan de descargas?

El formato de las fuentes es XX/YY + ZZ (WW) donde
XX es el número de fuentes disponibles (el número de fuentes desde las que puedes descargar).
YY es el número de fuentes encontradas (el total de fuentes encontradas).
ZZ es el número de fuentes a las que se ha pedido otro archivo ("Asked for another file")
WW es el número de fuentes desde las que se está descargando alguna parte en este momento.

¿Por qué hay dos tasas de transferencia en la lista de subidas?

Cuando estás subiendo algún archivo a algún cliente, la lista de subidas muestra la tasa de transferencia (la velocidad en KBps) a la que estás enviando datos a ese cliente. Si, al mismo tiempo, ese cliente te está enviando un fichero (o ficheros), entonces el formato de la tasa de transferencia cambiará a XX/YY donde XX significa la velocidad a la que le estas enviando el fichero e YY es la velocidad a la que te está enviando a él a tí. Si buscas en la lista de descargas encontrarás a ese cliente.
Esto es útil si estás intentando obtener un archivo raro, poruqe así puede encontrar a los clientes que te están dando datos, y si es un archivo raro, puedes ponerle un slot de amigo, para subir a ese cliente más rápidamente y ganar más créditos en esos clientes (y por consiguiente, bajar más rápido desde ellos).

¿Cúal es la diferencia entre Transferido y Completado en la ventana de Tráfico?

Transferido muestra los datos que has recibido de ese archivo. Estos datos hasn sido descargados en un formato comprimido. Una vez que los datos están en tu máquina, amule los procesa y los descomprime. El total de datos útiles que pueden ser usados de los datos recibidos (esto es, las partes de esos datos que son partes reales del archivo que estás intentando descargar y no son cabeceras o cosas de esas) es la cantidad que puedes ver en la columna de Completado.

¿Qué son todos esos archivos que aMule créa la primera vez que se ejecuta?

La mayoría son los mismos que los de eMule. Aquí hay una lista del significado de cada uno (ten en cuenta que puedes no tener todos en tu disco duro):
~/.eMule: Configuración personal de aMule (esto es, cosas como tu Alias, tus directorios Temp e Incoming, tus límites de subida y bajada, etc...).
~/.aMule/addresses.dat: Contiene la lista de URLs con listas de servidores a comprobar (si está activado en la Preferencias) cada nueva ejecución.
~/.aMule/amulesig.dat: Este es el archivo que contiene la firma online de aMule, que es el mismo que la firma de eMule (ver onlinesig.dat abajo) pero con información extendida (que incluye alias, bytes descargados y subidos por sesión y totales, la versión de aMule, el tiempo de ejecución de aMule y el número de archivos compartidos).
~/.aMule/aMule.tmpl: Ésta es la plantilla que usa el servidor web de aMule para crear la página web.
~/.aMule/aMule-online-sign.png: Este archivo solo existe si CAT ha sido ejecutado alguna vez con el modificador -o y ~/.aMule/casrc ha sido correctamente configurado. Esta imagen contiene detalles del estado de aMule.
~/.aMule/casrc: Este archivo solo existe si CAS ha sido ejecutado con el modificador -o. Contiene la configuración de la creación de imagenes de CAS.
~/.aMule/clients.met: Contiene los creditos de los clientes de los que has obtenido datos y su user hash.
~/.aMule/cryptkey.dat: Contiene la clave RSA única de 384 bits para tu cliente.
~/.aMule/emfriends.met: Contiene la configuración de la lista de tus amigos.
~/.aMule/ipfilter.dat: Este archivo contiene los rangos de IPS y los niveles de restriciones que deben ser pasados a ipfilter.
~/.aMule/Incoming: By default, the directory where aMule stores the completed downloads.
~/.aMule/known.met: This file stores the hash and some details of your shared files like size, path, statics, etc...
~/.aMule/lastversion: This is only for aMule to know if it's the first time you're starting aMule, if you had aMule installed before and which version you had installed previously.
~/.aMule/logfile: This file contains the log of the last aMule execution.
~/.aMule/muleconn: This file is a socket for aMule communications.
~/.aMule/onlinesig: This is an eMule compatible OnLineSignature file. It's used by other applications to know basic information on aMule's stat (if it's online, which server it's connected to, upload and download rate, and clients in queue).
~/.aMule/preferences.dat: Contains the user hash, which is a hash value the uniquely identifies you in the ED2K network and which is used to avoid cheating with credits and with friends lists.
~/.aMule/server.met: This is a list of all known servers and you're preferences on them (priority, name, ip, port and such).
~/.aMule/shareddir.dat: Stores the paths to all shared directories.
~/.aMule/Temp: By default, the directory where aMule stores the not completed downloads (temporary files).
~/.aMule/webserver: This directory contains the necessary files for aMule WebServer to display a nice Web page.
Other files on ~/.aMule/ are most surely backups of some of the above files.
Also, on the Temp directory (which is ~/.aMule/Temp by default but can be set to any other on Preferences), aMule will create, for each download three or four files):
*.part: This file contains the downloaded parts (not chunks, since not completed chunks are also stored here) of the download. As aMule is able to download from more than one user at the same time, this file has the size of the complete file. The missing parts are filled with zeros.
*.part.met: This file contains information on the downloaded parts of the download, the verified chunks, the hash values of the remaining chunks, etc...
*.part.met.bak: This are backups of the *.part.met files. Every now and then aMule creates this backups since without the *.part.met file, a download has no meaning for aMule. If any *.part.met file "disappeared, you should rename the *.part.met.bak to *.part.met.
*.part.met.seeds: This files only exist if you have enabled, in preferences, to store the some sources's IPs on rare files so that it can try to connect to those sources on next aMule execution. It contains exactly that, some sources to be able to connect later.

Can I use eMule's files and settings and viceversa?

Most of them yes. The only ones you can't share between aMule and eMule are the program configuration (that is, preferences.ini in eMule and ~/.eMule in aMule). All the ED2K network related files can be successfully shared between the two applications with no more effort than copying the files in ~/.aMule to the eMule's directory and viceversa. But have in mind that some files in ~/.aMule are aMule specific, such as amulesig.dat or aMule.tmpl, so it's better to only move those files that are in both the aMule and the eMule directory.

What is all that stuff in amulesig.dat and onlinesig.dat?

I guess you already read what amulesig.dat and onlinesig.dat are for above. So, this is the meaning of their contents (have in mind that if aMule crashes, the contents of both files will be the last written status):
onlinesig.dat
It is composed of two lines. The first one, when aMule is offline, will contain a 0 (zero) and nothing else, but when aMule is online, it'll contain a 1 (number one) followed by | (the pipe character) then the name of there server it's currently connected to followed by the pipe character, then the IP of the server it's currently connected to followed by the pipe character and finally the port it is connected to on that server.
The second line contains, in this order, the downloading rate, the uploading rate and the number of users on queue, with a pipe character between each of them and ended with an end of line character ('\n').
When aMule is cleanly closed the second line contains the same structure but filled with zeros, while the first line will only contain a single zero.
amulesig.dat
aMule's signature file is much more powerful than eMule's and has as much lines as fields. It's structure is:
The first line will contain a 0 (zero) if aMule is disconnected, connecting or has been cleanly closed, or a 1 (number 1) if it's online.
The second third and forth line contain the name, IP and port of the server aMule is connected to (in this order) or a zero if it's offline or cleanly closed.
The fifth line will contain an capital H or a capital L depending if aMule is connected on high or low ID. If aMule is disconnected or cleanly closed, this line will contain a zero.
The sixth and seventh lines contain the speed in which aMule is downloading and uploading respectively. Both lines contain "0.0" when aMule is cleanly closed.
The eighth and ninth lines contain the number of clients on the upload queue and the amount of shared files respectively. Both lines are aset to zero too when aMule is cleanly closed.
The tenth line contains the nickname of the user.
The eleventh and twelve lines contain the total amount of bytes downloaded and uploaded respectively.
The thirteenth line contains the aMule version.
The fourteenth and fifteenth line contains the amount of bytes downloaded and uploaded in the current session respectively.
The sixteenth (and last) line contains the amount of tie aMule has been running. It will be followed by a space and "secs" "mins" or "hours" depending on the value.
The last line must be followed by a new line character ('\n').

I just installed aMule for the first time. How do I set it up?

Setting up aMule properly is just a matter of tastes and depends on many factors. If you just wish a quick startup configuration, then continue reading.
Open aMule and click on the Preferences button. Set a nickname and the language in which you wish to have aMule. Then switch to the Connection tab and input your Line Capacities. Then input the Bandwidth Limits according to the maximum amount of bandwidth you want aMule to use. Then switch to the Directories tab and set a directory for both the temporary files (where files will be stored until they are completely downloaded) and the completed files. Finally, select the directories which you want to share. It is not recommended to share too much files. Read bellow "What are the best settings I can set to have a nice download rate". To select recursively all directories inside a certain directory, hold CTRL while clicking over the directory.

How do I start my aMule experience?

Just click on the Connect button. You should have some servers listed on the Servers window, though. If you have no servers listed, then click on the little button below the Connect button in the Servers window before clicking the Connect button. After some time, aMule will be connected to some server (you'll know because in the lower right corner the "Not connected" message will disappear). When connected, switch to the Search window and search for the file you want and once you find the file you want, double-click on it.
For general aMule usage, join aMule #amule in irc.freenode.net or ask in forums at http://www.amule.org/amule

What are the best settings I can set to have a nice download rate?

If you understood "Is there any limit on the ED2K network?" then you might have seen that, if your provider allows you, the best is to have the upload limit set to a minimum of 10 KBps. Also, if you understood "What is all that credits, rate and score stuff about?", you might also understand that the more you upload, the more you download, so take the upload limit up as much as you can, share well known and popular files (don't share too much (not more than approximately 200 files) or you'll get banned from some servers for giving too much traffic) and try to share small-sized popular files since some ED2K clients give extra credits for providing them a whole small-sized files. A good tip (thanks to kaouete) when you are trying to download some rare or "never completing" file, is, whenever you see someone uploading to you some chunk of that file, give that client a friend slot so that, if it tries to download something from you, it gets preference and you gain credits on that client.

Can I manage aMule remotely through telnet in the same way I do with eDonkey?

Yes you can, but not exactly in the same way as you do with eDonkey. Just start a normal telnetl session with the host computer (the one running aMule) and, once in, use amulecmd to take control over aMule. To start new downloads just use the ed2k command. Remember amulecmd must be configured.
Another aMule utility that might be of your interest is CAS (which's command is cas) which will show basic aMule statics.
Also, aMule WebServer might be what you are looking for if you can and don't mind using a web browser on the client computer. Have in mind that aMule WebBrowser must also be configured.

Is there any way to start aMule with no graphical interface?

aMule is a monolithic application. This means that core and GUI are a whole unsplittable block (although some efforts are already focused in splitting core from GUI). Even though, there's still a walkaround to run aMule on command line but it's not a direct way. You should run xvfb and then run aMule in it. Afterwards you can take control over aMule using amulecmd and ed2k in the same way as you would if you were accessing aMule remotely over telnet (see above). If you need help on this issue, ask at aMule's forums at http://www.amule.org/amule

Can I run two aMule instances at the same time?

Yes you can, although it is not recommended. aMule will only check if the concurrent user was is running some aMule instance, so you can run as much aMule instances as user accounts you have access too. To do this, just run xhost + and then su as another user and run aMule from that shell.
Be aware, since aMule can't check if a user is running aMule on another X display. So, if your account is already running some aMule instance in some other X display, do not run another aMule instance on another X display or you might end up with lost configuration settings and corrupt chunks.

How can I get those nice aMule statics some people post on the IRC channels?

You can either copy and paste CAS's (C aMule Statics) output (to execute CAS, run cas) or, if you use xChat as your IRC client and have the Perl module installed, you could use XAS (xChat aMule Statics).

What is a friend slot?

A friend slot is just a slot which is assigned to a client in the friends list. Only one friend can have a slot at the same time. Whenever that friend (who has the friend slot enabled) tries to download a file from you, it will be given highest priority in the uploads queue, since it has that slot always assigned. While that friend isn't downloading, that assigned slot will be given to any random client who might want to download from you.

What is the real point on setting up Line Capacities in Preferences? Shouldn't aMule only care for the Bandwidth Limits?

aMule really only cares for the Bandwidth Limits. Line Capacities are only set for the Statics display. Let's see: Imagine you have a 100KBps connection, imagine you want to set the Limit at 40KBps because you have a web server which needs a minimum of 60KBps to serve all the petitions. Now imagine you download rare indonesian free songs. You most surely never download at more than 3KBps ever. So, you could set Line Capacities at 5KBps so that the graph at Statics has some meaning, since if you set it up as a 100KBps connection, the graph will show an horizontal line with no meaning at all.