BitTorrent Inc. proudly announced a few hours ago the immediate availability for download of the first alpha version of uTorrent Server for Linux and UNIX-like operating systems!

The uTorrent Server application provides a state-of-the-art implementation of the popular BitTorrent protocol and a full-featured WebUI (web-based user interface).

"This morning, we are announcing a preview release of the first of two new products for Linux users. µTorrent Server, an alpha version available immediately for download, is intended for users seeking a fast, powerful and lightweight BitTorrent client without the need of the full features and complexity of the native GUI."

"The server is a daemonizable 32-bit binary of the µTorrent core, built for x86 compatible Linux. It can be managed programmatically via an HTTP API or interactively by using the (included) customized version of the popular uTorrent Web user interface." - was stated in the announcement.

Highlights of uTorrent Server:

· DHT support (Distributed Hash Table)
· UPnP port mapping
· NAT-PMP port mapping
· Upload rate limiting
· Download rate limiting
· Queuing support
· Configurable limit on number of simultaneously uploading peers
· Incremental file allocation
· Block level piece picking
· Separate threads for download and file-check
· Single port and single thread for multiple torrent downloads
· BitTorrent extension protocol
· Multi-tracker extension support
· Fair trade extension
· Compact tracker extension
· Fast resume support
· Queuing of torrent file-check if fast resume not possible
· HTTP seed support
· Resumption of partial downloads from other BitTorrent clients
· File-sizes greater than 2GB
· Selective download of multi-file torrents
· IPv6 support
· High performance network stack
· uTP - Advanced UDP-based transport with dynamic congestion control

At the moment, this alpha version of uTorrent Server for Linux is available only as an archive, intended to be used for testing purposes only. Packages for various Linux distributions (i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora) will be available in the next releases!

"Today's version is only the first step, and we will continue to support the Linux user community with new versions in the near future. If you prefer to stick to more conventional user experience, rest assured we are working hard to build a full-featured client, coming soon."

"µTorrent Linux will offer the same clean and full featured UI that millions of users of of µTorrent on Windows have enjoyed. We are hoping to get this out to you for testing in a few months. Stay tuned!"

Download uTorrent Server 3.0 Alpha for Linux right now from Softpedia.