ShortPaste

A lightweight personnal URL shortener, pastebin and file uploader.

ShortPaste is open-source software written in Go and React. It is a minimalistic shortener that combines three things that need shortening: links, files, and text. It is a self-hosted alternative to many popular services like bitly, paste bin and using dropbox to send a file to someone quickly.

The Go backend handles saving files, links, and text in DB and filesystem as needed, while the React UI provides a pretty view for you to add and review content. Added bonus, it tracks hit counts too!

Running

Docker

docker run -v "${pwd}/shortpaste/data:/app/data" -p8080:8080 --env-file "${pwd}/shortpaste/.env" ghcr.io/bemble/shortpaste:latest 

Docker compose

  shortpaste:
    image: ghcr.io/bemble/shortpaste:latest 
    container_name: shortpaste
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - ${PORT_SHORTPASTE}:8080
    env_file:
      - "${PWD}/shortpaste/.env"
    volumes:
      - "${PWD}/shortpaste/data:/app/data"
      - /usr/share/zoneinfo:/usr/share/zoneinfo:ro
      - /etc/localtime:/etc/localtime:ro

Build docker image

rm -rf public
docker build . -t shortpaste

Environment Variables

You can customize the behavior using environment variables:.

Environment Variable	Default Value	Behaviour
API_KEY	CHANGE-IT-ASAP	API key used to communicate with the API.
BASE_PATH	/	App base path (use it if the app does not have run its dedicated domain name).
DOMAIN		Override shortened URL domain in front, when copy to clipboard (default is the actual page domain). Example: https://sho.rt
DEBUG		Whether the app runs in debug mode or not (basically just more logs).
PORT	8080	Port on which app is running, should not be changed.

Securing

Keep in mind that ShortPaste is not secured by any authentication, API key is not enough if ShortPaste is exposed on the internet.

ShortPaste should run behind a reverse proxy (such as as nginx-proxy-manager or trafeik). Configure your reverse proxy to directly expose only /l/*, /t/* and /f/*. All other routes (most important /api) should wether not be exposed on the internet or with an authentication layer.

Screenshots

Here are some screenshots to get a taste of it:

Type	Create	View
Links
Text
Files

Development

Requirements

• Golang version 1.19 minimum must be installed

Folder structure

• Create a data folder at project root
• Add a configuration file
• ⚠️ while developing, you should not use a base_path

Running the server

For server development

Server will run on port 8080:

cd server
go run main.go

Alternatively, you can use nodemon to get server restart on file change:

npm i -g nodemon
nodemon --exec go run main.go --signal SIGTERM

For front-end development

You might want to run the server just to develop on the front. You can use previous method or use Docker to run it (and do not install all go environment etc).

docker build . -f server/Dockerfile.dev -t shortpaste/dev-server
docker run -t -i --rm -p8080:8080 -v"$(pwd)/data:/app/data" -v"$(pwd)/server:/app/server" shortpaste/dev-server

You should rebuild on update.

Running the front-end

Front-end is developed in React. You need to have the server running.

To run the front:

cd front
npm i
npm run start

Your web browser should open on http://localhost:3000. The app is configured to proxy the server for development purpose (ie. api is also reachable on http://localhost:3000/api).

Note: if you set an API key in your configuration, you must set it when running front: REACT_APP_API_KEY=<yourkey> npm run start

TODO

• optimize build time
• allow user to set the public url for shortened content
• move from sqlite3 to modernc.org/sqlite to compile without CGO (and use scratch, lighter image)
• display status with version
• reduce duplicate code to display links
• allow user to change language
• add all options in front when create a new text
• error handling (on add and delete)
• allow edit?
• display text and file in frontend

Credits

ShortPaste is based on Adyanth Hosavalike's Short{Paste}.