Unable to access transmission web interface: 403 forbidden

Hi,

First of all I am very new to Linux/Debian, but with the help of a friend installed debian squeeze on my dockstar and was using tranmission 2.03. It was working fine for last few months but lately I am facing problem in accessing transmission web interface (http://192.168.1.3:9091/transmission/web/) as I am getting the following error:

403: Forbidden
Unauthorized IP Address.
Either disable the IP address whitelist or add your address to it.
If you're editing settings.json, see the 'rpc-whitelist' and 'rpc-whitelist-enabled' entries.
If you're still using ACLs, use a whitelist instead. See the transmission-daemon manpage for details.

After I googled, I found there is some issue with settings.json. But I am unable to fix this issue. Can some one help me on how to get this fixed? Apologies if this has already been answered or its too noobish, actually i am too noob when it comes to Linux/Debian.

Thanks!

1. Stop transmission
2. Edit /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json and set user/pass, change the whitelist accordingly or disable it etc and save the file.
3. Start Transmission

Thanks, actually settings.json was missing from /etc/transmission-daemon/ location, so I copied it to the location. Now even though I am able to access the transmission via web interface but I am still unable to download any torrents. As when I start downloading anything the download starts and then automatically stops within a few seconds. I guess there is some problem in Download dir location in settings.json. Currently it is set to /root/downloads...any pointers on how to fix this?

After some hit and trial I was successfully able to start download for one torrent, but when I try to add another torrent and download, it doesn't start at all. I found that the settings.json file is present at three locations:

1. /root/.config/transmission-daemon/settings.json
2. /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
3. /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/settings.json

Also, earlier when I was able to download the torrents all those torrents could be found under /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info/torrents location. So I am not sure in which of the 3 above mentioned locations I have to update the 'download-dir' and what should be my download location?

How do you start transmission? Do you execute an script in /etc/init.d?
If you just type "transmission-daemon" from a terminal, you will end up with settings.json at the location you start the program from.

yes, there is a script under /etc/init.d that runs which is something like this:

#!/bin/sh -e
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: transmission-daemon
# Required-Start: $local_fs $remote_fs $network
# Required-Stop: $local_fs $remote_fs $network
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5
# Default-Stop: 0 1 6
# Short-Description: Start or stop the transmission-daemon.
### END INIT INFO

NAME=transmission-daemon
DAEMON=/usr/bin/$NAME
USER=debian-transmission
# FIXME: no pidfile support; forks, so --make-pidfile doesn't work either
#PIDFILE=/var/run/$NAME.pid
STOP_TIMEOUT=3

export PATH="${PATH:+$PATH:}/sbin"

[ -x $DAEMON ] || exit 0

[ -e /etc/default/$NAME ] && . /etc/default/$NAME

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

start_daemon () {
if [ $ENABLE_DAEMON != 1 ]; then
log_progress_msg "(disabled, see /etc/default/${NAME})"
else
start-stop-daemon --start \
--chuid $USER \
--exec $DAEMON -- $OPTIONS
fi
}

case "$1" in
start)
log_daemon_msg "Starting bittorrent daemon" "$NAME"
start_daemon
log_end_msg 0
;;
stop)
log_daemon_msg "Stopping bittorrent daemon" "$NAME"
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
--exec $DAEMON --retry $STOP_TIMEOUT \
--oknodo
log_end_msg 0
;;
reload)
log_daemon_msg "Reloading bittorrent daemon" "$NAME"
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
--exec $DAEMON \
--oknodo --signal 1
log_end_msg 0
;;
restart|force-reload)
log_daemon_msg "Restarting bittorrent daemon" "$NAME"
start-stop-daemon --stop --quiet \
--exec $DAEMON --retry $STOP_TIMEOUT \
--oknodo
start_daemon
log_end_msg 0
;;
*)
echo "Usage: /etc/init.d/$NAME {start|stop|reload|force-reload|restart}"
exit 2
;;
esac

exit 0

The one from transmissionbt.com has the following part...

#
# ----- CONFIGURATION -----
#
# For the default location Transmission uses, visit:
# http://trac.transmissionbt.com/wiki/ConfigFiles
# For a guide on how set the preferences, visit:
# http://trac.transmissionbt.com/wiki/EditConfigFiles
# For the available environement variables, visit:
# http://trac.transmissionbt.com/wiki/EnvironmentVariables
#
# The name of the user that should run Transmission.
# It's RECOMENDED to run Transmission in it's own user,
# by default, this is set to 'transmission'.
# For the sake of security you shouldn't set a password
# on this user
USERNAME=transmission

toward the beginning of the script. By setting USERNAME to transmission, the settings will be under /home/transmission/.config/transmission-daemon .



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 11:35AM by funtoy1001.

In my case the script mentioned above looks for /etc/default/$NAME. Where $NAME is set to "transmission-daemon" and when I open this file it has:


# defaults for transmission-daemon
# sourced by /etc/init.d/transmission-daemon

# Change to 0 to disable daemon
ENABLE_DAEMON=1

# This directory stores some runtime information, like torrent files
# and links to the config file, which itself can be found in
# /etc/transmission-daemon/settings.json
CONFIG_DIR="/var/lib/transmission-daemon/info"

# Default options for daemon, see transmission-daemon(1) for more options
OPTIONS="--config-dir $CONFIG_DIR"


which gives me idea that settings.json at /var/lib/transmission-daemon/info location is being used. But problem is when I set 'Download-dir' to be /mnt/Downloads....the download doesnt start :(



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/29/2012 12:13PM by saz.

can some one help me here, Now I am able to seed the already downloaded torrents but still unable to download new :(
Below is my settings.json file:

{
"alt-speed-down": 50,
"alt-speed-enabled": false,
"alt-speed-time-begin": 540,
"alt-speed-time-day": 127,
"alt-speed-time-enabled": false,
"alt-speed-time-end": 1020,
"alt-speed-up": 50,
"bind-address-ipv4": "0.0.0.0",
"bind-address-ipv6": "::",
"blocklist-enabled": false,
"dht-enabled": true,
"download-dir": "/mnt/Downloads",
"encryption": 1,
"incomplete-dir": "/mnt/Downloads",
"incomplete-dir-enabled": false,
"lazy-bitfield-enabled": true,
"lpd-enabled": false,
"message-level": 2,
"open-file-limit": 32,
"peer-limit-global": 240,
"peer-limit-per-torrent": 0,
"peer-port": 51413,
"peer-port-random-high": 65535,
"peer-port-random-low": 1024,
"peer-port-random-on-start": false,
"peer-socket-tos": 0,
"pex-enabled": true,
"port-forwarding-enabled": true,
"preallocation": 1,
"proxy": "",
"proxy-auth-enabled": false,
"proxy-auth-password": "",
"proxy-auth-username": "",
"proxy-enabled": false,
"proxy-port": 80,
"proxy-type": 0,
"ratio-limit": 2.0000,
"ratio-limit-enabled": false,
"rename-partial-files": true,
"rpc-authentication-required": false,
"rpc-bind-address": "0.0.0.0",
"rpc-enabled": true,
"rpc-password": "{6160f9e5864307e57828803438bf1c64da360c87KPcL6HEx",
"rpc-port": 9091,
"rpc-username": "",
"rpc-whitelist": "127.0.0.1,192.168.*.*",
"rpc-whitelist-enabled": true,
"script-torrent-done-enabled": false,
"script-torrent-done-filename": "",
"speed-limit-down": 100,
"speed-limit-down-enabled": false,
"speed-limit-up": 100,
"speed-limit-up-enabled": false,
"start-added-torrents": true,
"trash-original-torrent-files": false,
"umask": 18,
"upload-slots-per-torrent": 14
}

Did you do a df to see if /mnt/Downloads has space for the new torrents?

I will try that in the evening, but I guess HDD has ample space. Could this be because of some write permission issue?



~~~~~~~~Edit~~~~~~~~~~
well somehow I managed to make it work, by using chmod command to set permissions for /mnt/Downloads directory and other transmission directories. But would want to make sure its stable and doesn't throw any error....for time being its up and running fine :)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2012 09:21AM by saz.

saz Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi,
>
> First of all I am very new to Linux/Debian, but
> with the help of a friend installed debian squeeze
> on my dockstar and was using tranmission 2.03. It
> was working fine for last few months but lately I
> am facing problem in accessing transmission web
> interface
> (http://192.168.1.3:9091/transmission/web/) as I
> am getting the following error:
>
> 403: Forbidden
> Unauthorized IP Address.
> Either disable the IP address whitelist or add
> your address to it.
> If you're editing settings.json, see the
> 'rpc-whitelist' and 'rpc-whitelist-enabled'
> entries.
> If you're still using ACLs, use a whitelist
> instead. See the transmission-daemon manpage for
> details.
>
> After I googled, I found there is some issue with
> settings.json. But I am unable to fix this issue.
> Can some one help me on how to get this fixed?
> Apologies if this has already been answered or its
> too noobish, actually i am too noob when it comes
> to Linux/Debian.
>
> Thanks!