There are several options for running a tracker, as explained below. However before going to the trouble of installing and running your own tracker, you should first consider whether you actually need to run a tracker in the first place. There are many public BitTorrent trackers out there at the moment, see Links to Popular BitTorrent Sites for a good list. Unless you have some compelling reason why you want to run your own tracker, it's probably best to use someone else's. Hosting a tracker on a workstation-type machine with a dynamic IP address is possible but can be very tricky. In short, if you're not sure whether you need to run a tracker or not, then you don't need to.

Before starting on your tracker, make sure you've read and understand How do I create a new torrent (share a file I have with others)?, especially the part about the need for the --ip parameter for seeding machines on the same side of a NAT gateway as the tracker.

Below are the common ways to run a tracker: