Usenet
This doc is to help set up Usenet inside of Aiostreams. Before we jump straight in, however, I'll first give a short crash course on Usenet. If you are already familiar with Usenet, feel free to skip straight to the setup guide. If instead you want to learn more on usenet check out the usenet subreddit and it's wiki
3 Things You Need to Know (If you're used to Torrents)
- No Seeders Needed: Unlike torrents, which are peer-to-peer (P2P), Usenet uses a client-server model. You are downloading files directly from massive, high-speed servers. This means you will always max out your internet connection speed, even for obscure files, without relying on anyone "seeding" them.
- Retention: Because providers host these files on real hard drives, they can't keep them forever. Retention is the number of days a provider keeps a file before deleting it to make room for new ones. High-end providers keep files for years, but once a file passes the provider's retention limit, it's gone. Torbox, for example, has a retention of 5000 days.
- Obfuscation: To protect files from being immediately taken down, uploaders hide them by scrambling their names (e.g., naming a movie file
abc123xyz.part01.rar). This is called obfuscation. This is why you cannot search your provider directly; you need an Indexer. The indexer holds the NZB file, which acts as the "decoder ring" telling your client: "Hey, download these scrambled pieces and put them back together into the actual movie."
A basic Usenet setup usually looks like this:
| Piece | What it does |
|---|---|
| Usenet provider | Gives you access to Usenet servers |
| Search tool or indexer | Helps you find Usenet posts |
| Newsreader / NZB client | Connects to your provider and retrieves articles |
I recommend Torbox Pro as Usenet provider, as it covers both Usenet and Debrid and is easy to use. Don't have Torbox yet? Sign up with my referral. This is also the example I'm going to use in this guide. This guide will cover self-hosted Aiostreams as NZB client for the same reason. It is simply easy and fits right in your current debrid setup. I won't choose an indexer for you. For choosing one, I refer you to this page for a curated indexer list.
Starting in Aiostreams
Step 1: Add your Torbox credentials
- Log in to your self-hosted Aiostreams instance with your admin credentials.
- Then open the dashboard, open the Usenet dropdown, and select providers.
- In here, fill in your Torbox credentials, which can be found in the tools page. Please note that Torbox Pro is required for this, and the Usenet password only gets shown once
Step 2: Enable the service
- After this has been filled in, go back to your configuration.
- Enable the Aiostreams service in the services tab.
- Press configure, and make sure to fill yours in exactly like
username:password.
Step 3: Configure your indexer
- Proceed to the addons section and in the marketplace search for Newznab.
- Add your indexer API key and configure the settings to your liking (check out this page if you don't have an indexer yet). I highly recommend switching the search mode setting to
both. This will return far more streams, but it results in two api hits per indexer so don't turn it on when you are tight on api hits. - You can add as many Newznab instances. Each one per indexer, which is recommended to get greater coverage.
IMPORTANT
To avoid getting blocked or potentailly banned by your indexer, go to Dashboard - Settings - HTTP and under request header overrides set: [newznab] = {nzbhydra2} and [nzb_grabs] = {sabnzbd}.
If anything else goes wrong, take a look at the server logs that can be found on the dashboard. If you can't find the fix on your own, ask around in the Aiostreams Discord.
Additional Usenet Settings
You're all set; below are some optional settings you can tweak. All of these are found on the dashboard.
Max connections and Pipeline depth
- Both of these are in the Usenet Providers settings. These two affect download speed from your Usenet Provider. I won't go in details what they do exactly. Just test what configuration works best for your specific network. There is a speedtest on this page to help you with exactly this.
Multiple Usenet Providers
- On the Usenet Provider page, you can add multiple Usenet providers. Users use multiple Usenet providers across different backbones to fill up missing files from their primary provider. In Aiostreams, you can set a provider as backup. This will let Aiostreams prefer your primary provider for most traffic and only use the backup to fill up missing articles. This can be helpful if the backup provider has download limits or is a block account.
Usenet Settings
- In the Usenet dropdown, an extensive settings page can be found. I won't go in detail over each one as it already has its own explanation.