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Torznab and Newznab Indexers

Marauder ships with first-class support for the two indexer protocols that drive the entire English-speaking self-hosted scene:

  • Torznab — used by Jackett, Prowlarr, NZBHydra2 (in torrent mode), and Sonarr/Radarr to talk to torrent indexers
  • Newznab — used by NZBGeek, NZBPlanet, DOGnzb, NZBHydra2 (in Usenet mode), and any other Usenet indexer

These two plugins together unlock several hundred indexers without Marauder having to ship a scraper for any of them. If your tracker is already exposed by Jackett or Prowlarr, Marauder can monitor it.

How the model fits

Marauder's tracker abstraction is "watch a URL, detect updates by hash". Torznab/Newznab are search-based: you give the indexer a query and it returns a list of releases newest-first.

The two map cleanly:

Marauder concept Torznab/Newznab equivalent
Topic URL The indexer search URL with ?q=...
Hash The GUID (or infohash) of the newest item in the feed
"Update detected" A new release matching the search has appeared
Download payload The first item's <enclosure> URL

So a single Marauder topic pointing at torznab+https://prowlarr/.../?q=Some+Show becomes a permanent "follow this show" subscription that grabs every new episode that your indexer publishes — the same UX as Sonarr's wanted list, but driven by Marauder's existing scheduler and client routing.

One Marauder topic per show or movie you want to follow.

URL format

Both plugins use an explicit URL prefix so the auto-detected tracker selection is unambiguous:

torznab+https://prowlarr.example.com/api/v2.0/indexers/rutracker/results/torznab?apikey=KEY&t=search&q=Some+Show
newznab+https://nzbgeek.info/api?apikey=KEY&t=tvsearch&q=Some+Show&season=1

The torznab+ / newznab+ prefix is stripped before the actual HTTPS request is made.

Step-by-step: Torznab via Prowlarr

  1. In Prowlarr, configure the indexer you want to follow (e.g. RuTracker via the Prowlarr indexer definition).

  2. Open the indexer's "Test" or "Sync" page and copy the Torznab feed URL. It looks like:

    https://prowlarr.example.com/12/api?apikey=YOUR_KEY&t=search

  3. Append your search terms:

    https://prowlarr.example.com/12/api?apikey=YOUR_KEY&t=search&q=Some+Show+S01

  4. Open the Marauder UI, click Add topic, and paste:

    torznab+https://prowlarr.example.com/12/api?apikey=YOUR_KEY&t=search&q=Some+Show+S01

  5. Marauder detects the torznab plugin from the prefix, parses the indexer URL, and on the next scheduler tick fetches the feed.

  6. Configure a qBittorrent (or Transmission/Deluge) client and set it as default. New releases are sent there automatically.

Step-by-step: Newznab via NZBGeek

  1. Sign in to NZBGeek (or any Newznab indexer) and copy your API key from the profile page.

  2. Build the search URL:

    https://nzbgeek.info/api?apikey=YOUR_KEY&t=tvsearch&q=Some+Show&season=1

  3. Open the Marauder UI, click Add topic, and paste:

    newznab+https://nzbgeek.info/api?apikey=YOUR_KEY&t=tvsearch&q=Some+Show&season=1

  4. Configure a downloadfolder client pointed at your SABnzbd or NZBGet watch directory:

    /path/to/sabnzbd/watch

  5. When a new release matches the search, Marauder downloads the .nzb file and writes it to the watch folder. SABnzbd / NZBGet pick it up automatically.

Note: Marauder does NOT speak the Usenet protocol itself. The Newznab plugin is purely a "watch the indexer feed and drop the .nzb in a folder" pipeline. The actual Usenet download is handled by your existing SABnzbd / NZBGet install.

Categories

Both Torznab and Newznab use category numbers to filter results. Append &cat=... to your URL:

Category Number
Movies (any) 2000
Movies HD 2040
TV (any) 5000
TV HD 5040
TV UHD 5045
Anime 5070
Music (any) 3000

Example — TV HD only:

torznab+https://prowlarr.example.com/12/api?apikey=KEY&t=search&q=Some+Show&cat=5040

What Marauder uses from the response

The XML feed shape Marauder reads is the standard Torznab/Newznab RSS+attr layout:

<rss version="2.0" xmlns:torznab="http://torznab.com/schemas/2015/feed">
  <channel>
    <item>
      <title>The Show S01E12 1080p WEB-DL</title>
      <guid>https://example.com/details/9001</guid>
      <pubDate>Mon, 06 Apr 2026 18:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
      <enclosure url="magnet:?xt=urn:btih:..." type="application/x-bittorrent"/>
      <torznab:attr name="seeders" value="42"/>
      <torznab:attr name="infohash" value="..."/>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>

For the hash, Marauder uses (in priority order):

  1. The torznab:attr name="infohash" value if present
  2. Otherwise the <guid> field

For the download, Marauder uses the <enclosure> URL of the first item:

  • Torrent indexers: this is usually a magnet: URI; Marauder hands it directly to qBittorrent / Transmission / Deluge / uTorrent
  • Newznab: this is a .nzb URL; Marauder downloads the bytes and passes them through to a downloadfolder client

For the display name, Marauder uses the first item's <title> in the topic detail view, and extracts the ?q= value from the URL for the topic list summary.

Validation

Both plugins are E2E tested against fixture-driven httptest servers using the canonical RSS+attr response format. The test files are at:

For live validation against your own indexer:

  1. Bring the dev stack up (docker compose -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.dev.yml up -d).
  2. Add a Torznab topic via the UI as described above.
  3. Wait for one scheduler tick (default 60 s).
  4. Open the System page in the Marauder UI and look for the topic in the run history — it should show checked: 1, updated: 1, errors: 0.
  5. Open your qBittorrent / SABnzbd UI and confirm the latest matching release was added.

If anything goes wrong, the per-topic error message in the topic list will tell you exactly what failed.

Why this is a big deal

Sonarr, Radarr, Prowlarr, Jackett, and NZBHydra2 collectively support more than 500 indexers. Marauder's two plugins reach all of them by speaking the same RSS protocol the *arr stack speaks.

This means a Marauder install can simultaneously:

  • Monitor Russian forum trackers (RuTracker, Kinozal, NNM-Club, etc.) via the dedicated forum-tracker plugins
  • Monitor any Torznab indexer (anywhere in the world) for new releases
  • Monitor Usenet indexers (NZBGeek, etc.) and drop NZBs into a watch folder

…all from a single dashboard, with one scheduler, one set of notification rules, and one access-controlled UI.