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Getting started · Chapter 6

Connecting indexers.

Indexers are the sources nexcrate searches for releases. Usenet indexers speak Newznab. Torrent trackers you connect through Prowlarr or Jackett, which speak Torznab. The shortest way is a connection to Prowlarr, and every indexer then arrives by itself. nexcrate is not an indexer manager. It takes the indexers from Prowlarr or one by one, and that is all.

With Prowlarr

If you have Prowlarr, you set nothing up there, not even an entry under “Apps”. nexcrate reads the indexers itself. Prowlarr has to be version 1.8.6 or newer.

  1. “Connect Prowlarr”

    Open “Settings › Indexers”. At the top is the card “Prowlarr”. Choose “Connect Prowlarr”.

  2. Enter address and key

    Enter the name, the “Address”, as you open Prowlarr in the browser, with its URL base, such as http://prowlarr:9696, and the “API key”. You find it in Prowlarr under “Settings, General”. nexcrate asks Prowlarr and reports which version answers and how many indexers it sees.

  3. Save

    nexcrate then syncs: it creates one indexer per Prowlarr indexer and from then on searches through Prowlarr.

Settings › Indexers
Settings › Indexers with the Prowlarr connection at the top, its sync, and below it the indexers with categories and seed goal
The connection to Prowlarr at the top, and below it the indexers that come from there.

The sync runs when you save, on request with “Sync now” and every 15 minutes. New indexers in Prowlarr arrive by themselves, deleted ones go. What Prowlarr decides you change there: name, address, key, on and off, priority, minimum seeders, categories and the seed goal. In nexcrate you keep tags, the MULTi languages, searching without the year, the anime standard format and the daily limit when Prowlarr sets none. If you choose “Add and remove only” as the sync, only address and key follow the connection, and you change everything else in nexcrate.

After a sync the card counts what happened, for instance how many indexers are new and how many were left out for lack of a fitting category or because they are switched off in Prowlarr.

Adding an indexer by hand

Without Prowlarr you enter each indexer yourself.

  1. “Add indexer”

    Choose the “Type”: “Newznab” for Usenet indexers, “Torznab” for torrents through Prowlarr or Jackett. If you mix them up, nexcrate says so: “The type does not match the indexer, Newznab and Torznab are mixed up.”

  2. Name, address and key

    The “Name” is free. The “Address” is the indexer's, as in Radarr. If no path follows, nexcrate adds /api itself and tells you. You find the “API key” in your account at the indexer. Some indexers need none.

  3. “Test connection”

    nexcrate asks the indexer how to search it and shows its categories. “Connection ok, the indexer returns results in the chosen categories.” means everything fits.

  4. Save

    The indexer is “Enabled”. nexcrate does not ask an indexer that is switched off.

Whether an indexer answers and what it returns you check with the “Test search” further down the page: type a search term, choose “Search”, and nexcrate shows the hits with size, age and seeders. Nothing is downloaded.

Categories

When testing, nexcrate asks the indexer which categories it has and preselects the fitting ones. There are separate lists for “Categories for movies”, “Categories for series”, “Categories for anime” and “Categories for music”. For movies that is usually everything from 2000 to 2999, for series everything from 5000 to 5999.

Without a tick in the series categories nexcrate skips the indexer for series, and without a tick in the music categories it never asks it for albums. An anime series asks the anime categories as well as those for series. “Show all categories” also shows the ones that do not belong to movies. If nothing comes back in the chosen categories, nexcrate says so and still lets you save: “Save anyway”.

Priority, daily limit and finer points

  • Priority. From 1 to 50, 25 is usual. If two releases are otherwise equally good, nexcrate takes the one from the indexer with the smaller number.
  • Daily limit. At most this many requests a day, from 1 to 100,000. If the indexer does not name its limit itself, nexcrate plans the automatic searches within it. Empty means no limit. Under “Settings › Automation” you see per indexer how many requests are used up today.
  • At least this many seeders. nexcrate does not take torrents with fewer seeders. 1 is usual, because without seeders a torrent never finishes.
  • Languages for MULTi. Some indexers put MULTi in the name without naming the languages. Here you tick which languages MULTi means at this indexer.
  • Search by title without the year. Only switch this on if this indexer finds nothing with the year.
  • Prefer indexer flags. Under “For every indexer”: if two releases are equal in quality, score and priority, the one with the better flags comes first, such as freeleech. Out of the box it is off, and it applies to movies only.

Seed goals for torrents

Private trackers usually demand that a torrent keeps being shared for a while, say 72 hours or until a ratio of 1. Whoever stops earlier risks a warning or a ban. So the indexer has three fields under “Seed goal”: “Ratio”, “Seed time in minutes” and “Seed time for packs” for season packs and discographies. For indexers from Prowlarr they arrive by themselves.

nexcrate passes the goal on to your download client with the torrent. qBittorrent gets it with the torrent, Transmission and Deluge get the ratio, and nexcrate stops them itself once the seed time is reached. Without a goal a torrent keeps sharing. What happens after the goal is in the next chapter, under “Remove finished torrents”.

Good to knowIndexer keys stay inside nexcrate. nexcrate fetches the NZB or torrent file itself and gives the download client only the file, never the key.

The releases can now be found, but not yet downloaded. For that nexcrate needs a program that downloads: Download clients.