I setup bittorrent to run from the comamnd line via the python script btdownloadcurses.py.

It's running fine, except unlike in the Win32 client, I have no way to cap the download rate. Normally this isn't a problem, however on some very active torrents I'll instantly cap my circuit with the torrent eating 95% of available bandwidth or more.

I can adjust the upload rate with --max_upload_rate but there is no corresponding --max_download_rate option and even if I set the max_upload_rate as low as 15 or 20 I can still pull down 200k/sec or more on well seeded torrents.

Anything I've missed, or does anyone know a way I can limit the download rate to say 80k/sec per torrent (I often set several to dl via screens)?

Haven't seen any --max_download_rate running headless. If you read stuff about traffic shapers you will read download rate isn't something you can manage in a useful way except by limiting upload rate and what you say about still getting 200k/s is somewhat evidence of that. You could try tweaking your torrent upload settings because the amount of peers that do inbound traffic is more or less equal to the amount of peers you request pieces from (in this case chokes work for you, not against you, I guess). Combine that with an outbound traffic shaper to restrict max bandwidth used and you should be OK. IIRC LART has a "wondershaper" script that will try to limit inbound but YMMV(VM).

That's kind of what I was afraid of. Thanks for the info.