You need a tracker for downloaders to be able to find each other. Because a tracker should be on a very reliable net connection, it's strongly recommended that you use a tracker run by someone else, especially if you don't have a co-located machine. Everyone else making files available via BitTorrent will be using a tracker, you should ask one of them for the url of theirs. (A single tracker can handle a huge number of files with very little load.) Don't use anyone's tracker without their permission, that's rude. (Tracker urls are contained in .torrent files.)

If you want to run your own tracker, follow the instructions in the README.txt in the source distribution.

Any web server will do, but you must associate the extension .torrent with the mimetype application/x-bittorrent. You should ask your web server's administrator to set it up.

If you are the web server administrator, either add the line

AddType application/x-bittorrent .torrent

application/x-bittorrent .torrent

Download and install completedir from the download page. It will install under Start -> All Programs -> completedir.

Next, take all the files you would like to make .torrents for and put them in a single directory. If there's a whole directory you'd like to make a single .torrent for, make it a subdirectory. If you only want to make a .torrent of one file, put it in a directory by itself.

Then run completedir. Click on 'select' and select the directory which you put all the files in. Enter the url of the tracker you're using in the 'announce url' field. You can leave the piece size at the default value. (Smaller piece sizes cause better performance, but make bigger .torrent files.)

Click 'make' and .torrent files will be created. For a file named 'spam', a file named 'spam.torrent' will be created.

If you want to create more .torrents, you don't have to remove the old files, just add the new files to the directory and click 'make' again. Completedir checks for existing .torrents and doesn't regenerate them.

Do this however you normally put files on your web server - .torrent files are just ordinary static files.

Given that you're reading this you've probably installed BitTorrent already, but if not get it from the download page.

For people to download it is necessary for there to be at least one downloader which has everything to begin with. Enter the url you put the .torrent file at into your web browser, and select the complete local file as the location to save to. After checking that the file is intact, the downloader will report that the download has succeeded, and wait for peers to upload to.

If there are multiple files you'd like to distribute, you have to start a separate downloader for each of them.

It is essential that your complete downloader be able to receive incoming connections. If you're behind a firewall or NAT, you should forward ports 6881 through 6889 to your machine. (The first downloader uses 6881, the next 6882, etc.)

You can link to the .torrent file as an ordinary hyperlink. Sending the url in email also works.