How to Limit Aria2 Download Speed on Ubuntu Linux

This article provides a step-by-step method to restrict the global download bandwidth for aria2 on Ubuntu. It covers both temporary command-line flags and persistent configuration file settings to ensure you maintain control over your network usage during downloads.

Install Aria2

If you have not already installed aria2, open your terminal and run the following command to install it from the Ubuntu repositories:

sudo apt update
sudo apt install aria2

Limit Speed via Command Line

To set a global download limit for a single session, use the --max-overall-download-limit option followed by your desired speed. You can specify the size using K (kilobytes) or M (megabytes).

For example, to limit the total download speed to 1 megabyte per second:

aria2c --max-overall-download-limit=1M [URL]

To limit the speed to 500 kilobytes per second:

aria2c --max-overall-download-limit=500K [URL]

Setting the value to 0 removes the limit entirely.

Limit Speed via Configuration File

To make the speed limit permanent for all future downloads, you should edit the aria2 configuration file. Create or open the configuration file located at ~/.aria2/aria2.conf. If the directory or file does not exist, you can create them using the following commands:

mkdir -p ~/.aria2
touch ~/.aria2/aria2.conf

Open the file in a text editor such as nano:

nano ~/.aria2/aria2.conf

Add or modify the following line to set your global download limit:

max-overall-download-limit=1M

Save the file and exit the editor. Any subsequent aria2 commands will now adhere to this limit automatically.

Verify the Settings

You can verify that the limit is active by starting a download and observing the speed output in the terminal. If you are using aria2 with the RPC interface, you can also change this setting on the fly without restarting the service by using the aria2.changeGlobalOption method with the max-overall-download-limit parameter.