rustnzb

A Modern Usenet Binary Downloader, Rewritten From the Ground Up in Rust

Built from scratch with zero legacy dependencies. Fast, efficient, and designed for self-hosters. Full NNTP pipeline with yEnc decoding, PAR2 verification & repair, archive extraction, and a clean web UI. No inherited technical debt -- just modern Rust with async I/O, connection pooling, and NNTP pipelining for maximum throughput.

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Features

	Feature	Description
⚡	NNTP Pipelining	Send multiple ARTICLE commands per connection before reading responses. Configurable pipeline depth per server eliminates round-trip latency.
🔄	Multi-Server Failover	Priority-ordered server list with automatic failover. Articles not found on one server are retried on the next. Optional servers for fill providers.
📦	yEnc Decoding	Fast yEnc decoder with CRC32 validation. Handles multi-part articles, escape sequences, and assembles files from decoded segments.
🔧	PAR2 Verify & Repair	Automatic PAR2 verification after download. Damaged files are repaired using recovery blocks before extraction.
📂	Archive Extraction	Automatic extraction of RAR, 7z, and ZIP archives after download and repair. Supports multi-part RAR with cleanup.
🖥️	Clean Web UI	Responsive single-page interface. Queue management, download history, server configuration, real-time logs, and drag-and-drop NZB upload.
🖱️	Desktop App	Native desktop application for Windows, macOS, and Linux powered by Tauri. System tray with queue count and speed.
🔌	REST API	Full HTTP API with Swagger/OpenAPI documentation. Queue, history, server management, status, and log endpoints.
🔁	SABnzbd Compatible	Drop-in replacement for SABnzbd. Works out of the box with Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, and other *arr applications.
📡	OpenTelemetry	Built-in tracing and metrics export via OTLP. Ship logs and metrics to Grafana, Jaeger, or any OTLP-compatible backend.
📥	SABnzbd Migration	Import your SABnzbd configuration with one click. Upload your sabnzbd.ini or connect to a live instance.

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Benchmarks

Head-to-head comparison with SABnzbd under identical conditions.

1-Hour Stress Test

Sustained load with continuous NZB submission -- 50 NNTP connections, 5 concurrent jobs.

Metric	rustnzb	SABnzbd
Avg speed	5,059 Mbps	1,002 Mbps
NZBs completed / hour	401	37
Downloaded in 1 hour	2,287 GB	455 GB
Memory over time	Stable (+2 MB/hr)	+2,412 MB/hr

Scenario Comparisons

Scenario	rustnzb	SABnzbd	Improvement
5 GB raw download	4.2s @ 10,316 Mbps	5.0s @ 8,535 Mbps	+21% faster
10 GB raw download	10.2s @ 8,394 Mbps	14.1s @ 6,098 Mbps	+38% faster
10 GB + 7z extraction	19.9s	29.2s	+47% faster
5 GB + PAR2 repair	33.5s (4.0s download)	30.4s (9.4s download)	2.4x faster download, 60% less memory

All benchmarks run on the same machine using Docker containers with identical configuration. Data served by a mock NNTP server to eliminate network variability. Full methodology and raw data in benchnzb/.

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Getting Started

Docker

docker run -d \
  --name rustnzb \
  -p 9090:9090 \
  -v ./config:/config \
  -v ./data:/data \
  -v /path/to/downloads:/downloads \
  ausagentsmith/rustnzb:latest

Open http://localhost:9090 and add your NNTP servers via the web UI.

Docker Compose

git clone https://github.com/AusAgentSmith-org/rustnzb.git
cd rustnzb
cp config.example.toml config.toml
docker compose up -d

Desktop App

Native application for Windows and Linux powered by Tauri.

Download the latest installer from GitHub Releases:

• Windows -- .exe (NSIS installer)
• Linux -- .deb or .rpm

From Source

git clone https://github.com/AusAgentSmith-org/rustnzb.git
cd rustnzb
cp config.example.toml config.toml
cargo build --release
./target/release/rustnzb

Requirements: Rust 1.88+ (2024 edition), 7z for archive extraction.

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Sonarr & Radarr Integration

rustnzb is a drop-in replacement for SABnzbd -- use the SABnzbd download client type in your *arr apps.

1. In Sonarr/Radarr, go to Settings > Download Clients > Add and select SABnzbd
2. Set Host and Port to your rustnzb instance
3. Enter your api_key (if configured in config.toml)
4. Set Category to match your rustnzb categories (e.g. tv, movies)

[general]
api_key = "your-secret-key"

[[categories]]
name = "tv"
output_dir = "tv"

[[categories]]
name = "movies"
output_dir = "movies"

Works with Sonarr, Radarr, Lidarr, Readarr, and Prowlarr.

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Architecture

A modular Rust workspace with clean separation of concerns.

Crate	Purpose
nzb-core	NZB parser, config, SQLite database, shared models
nzb-nntp	NNTP protocol, connection pool, TLS (rustls), pipelining, server failover
nzb-decode	yEnc decoder, CRC32 validation, file assembler
nzb-postproc	PAR2 verify & repair, RAR/7z/ZIP extraction, cleanup
nzb-web	Axum HTTP server, REST API, web UI, queue manager, SABnzbd compat

Download Pipeline

Parse NZB ─> Download (NNTP pipelining, multi-server failover)
         ─> Decode (yEnc + CRC32)
         ─> Verify & Repair (PAR2)
         ─> Extract (RAR, 7z, ZIP)
         ─> Complete

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Configuration

rustnzb uses TOML configuration with CLI and environment variable overrides.

Priority: CLI args > environment variables > TOML file > defaults

Most settings can be configured through the web UI. See config.example.toml for the full reference.

Key Environment Variables

Variable	Description
RUSTNZB_CONFIG	Config file path
RUSTNZB_PORT	Listen port
RUSTNZB_LOG_LEVEL	Log level (trace/debug/info/warn/error)
OTEL_ENABLED	Enable OpenTelemetry
OTEL_EXPORTER_OTLP_ENDPOINT	OTLP gRPC endpoint

Docker Volumes

Path	Purpose
/config	Configuration files
/data	Database, RSS state, credentials
/downloads	Incomplete and completed downloads

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API

Interactive API documentation is available at /swagger-ui when the server is running.

# Add NZB by URL
curl -X POST http://localhost:9090/api/queue/add-url \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"url": "https://example.com/file.nzb", "category": "movies"}'

# Upload NZB file
curl -X POST http://localhost:9090/api/queue/add \
  -F "file=@/path/to/file.nzb" -F "category=tv"

# Check status
curl http://localhost:9090/api/status

The SABnzbd-compatible API is available at /sabnzbd/api.

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Development

cargo build              # Debug build
cargo build --release    # Release build
cargo test --workspace   # All tests
cargo test -p nzb-decode # Single crate

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License

MIT

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Also by AusAgentSmith: Indexarr | rustTorrent