Hi,

I would like to ask a simple technical question regarding the ed2k protocol that eMul Plus uses.

Suppose I'm sharing file1, file2, ..., to file 10.

What happens when remote ed2k users want to download, say, file2?
What's the "basic protocol flow"?

Does the server I'm connected to send me a request for file2, and ONLY file2? (or remote client)

Or do remote clients and/or the server I'm connected to send me a full list of what remote users are searching for and my client sends a reply saying that I'm sharing files 1,2,..., to 10?

I would also appreciate it if someone could point me to a comprehensive guide to the ed2k protocol, but mostly as how it's implemented in emule plus.

Thanks,

Vieri

Actually nobody knows how the whole thing works together -- it's very complicated and designed in messy historical layers

We had some year 2004 diagrams which still can give some general idea, although many protocol parts were evolved:
http://emuleplus.info/forum/index.php?show...ers/KB/Diagrams

A lot of documentation can be found of the original eMule forum:
http://forum.emule-project.net/http://emuleplus.info/forum/index.php?showtopic=74494

eMule Plus uses the same protocol as original eMule. There're just minor differences in some places. Basic stuff is common for most clients, otherwise they can't be compatible.

Short reply to your question: your client publishes files on the server, other users ask servers for sources for the files they download. Server gives you as a source to them, after that they contact you directly. There're also other ways to distribute sources called source exchange (SX), it works between peers to reduce load on servers -- they spread list of source for a file they download between downloaders. Other clients don't see your full list unless it's requested through special request (check source context menu), but this thing is disabled by most users due to security reasons.

Thanks for clearly pointing out 3 possibilities. I asked because I'm trying to compare it with how the gnutella network behaves.

As a side question, is there an easy way to know what are the "most available" file sources (on a global scale)? In other words, if I just wanted to find the most commonly available files on the ed2k network (which should be the most downloaded) so that I'm statisticaly sure that I'll be able to download them "quickly", how could I do that?

Thanks!

Servers know that. You can see also number of sources when you do a search.

Beware of fake servers when looking for such information. These will give you several/many spurious results with huge numbers of sources. Not only must you stay away from such files (DO NOT DOWNLOAD), you must exclude these statistics from your research.

You can use the availability field on the search page to specify the popularity of the file you are looking for. That's the minimum number of sources on each server for every file shown in the results of the search. Never used this feature much; if I'm wrong, Aw3 or someone will please correct me.