shortify

Shortify

A simple URL shortener application written in Go.

Getting Started

$ git clone https://github.com/pseudomuto/shortify-go.git
$ script/build

Now you can take the compiled shortify executable and put it where ever you want.

NOTE: Currently, only go 1.4+ is supported. This should be easy to fix, so expect a new release shortly.

Using Shortify

Shortify is very simple. It has two endpoints:

• GET /{token} - will redirect to the full URL for the specified token
• POST /redirects - creates a new redirect (URLs are unique in this app)

Creating redirects requires a valid user account (see below). To create a redirect, you'll need to set the auth header on the request and supply a JSON object with a url property. Here's an example using CURL:

$ curl --user <username>:<password> \
> -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
> -d '{ "url": "http://pseudomuto.com/" }' \
> http://localhost:8080/redirects

The result (if successful) will be a JSON object similar to this one:

{
  "id": 2,
  "token": "2Bk",
  "url": "http://pseudomuto.com/",
  "createdAt": "2015-04-12T22:41:36.544495662Z"
}

After running the command above, you can browse to http://localhost:8080/2Bk and you will be redirected to http://pseudomuto.com/.

NOTE: tokens are case-sensitive (i.e. 2Bk != 2bk)

Hopefully errors don't occur, but when they do, the response will have the correct HTTP status code and will have the following response body:

{
  "code": <HTTP STATUS CODE>,
  "text": <ERROR MESSAGE>
}

Running Shortify

Shortify is a standalone application. You can run it as a service, or just in the foreground if you like.

./shortify

Configuring the Database

The database will be created when the app is run. Be sure to follow these instructions before running the app

Shortify uses environment variables to handle database connections. Currently, there is support for MySQL, PostgreSQL and Sqlite3. Very happy to receive PRs for others if you need them.

If you're having connectivity issues, please consult the corresponding driver's source for connection string details.

• MySQL
  • SHORTIFY_DB_DRIVER=mysql
  • SHORTIFY_DB_DATASOURCE=tcp:localhost:3306*mydb/myuser/mypassword
• PostgreSQL
  • SHORTIFY_DB_DRIVER=postgres
  • SHORTIFY_DB_DATASOURCE="user=<username> password=<password> dbname=<dbName> sslmode=disable"
• Sqlite3
  • SHORTIFY_DB_DRIVER=sqlite3
  • SHORTIFY_DB_DATASOURCE=/path/to/db/file.bin

You can also just supply these on the command line if you prefer:

SHORTIFY_DB_DRIVER=sqlite3 SHORTIFY_DB_DATASOURCE=local_db.bin ./shortify

A Quick Optimization

You can speed up the application by adding unique indexes for the following columns after creating the database.

• "redirects"."token"
• "users"."name"

In a future version, this will happen automatically.

Managing Users

Creating a new Redirect record requires authentication. This app is configured to use basic authentication (read: should be served over SSL).

Passwords are randomly generated and then hashed for storage in the database.

• List all users - ./shortify users list
• Create a new user - ./shortify users create [username]
• Generate a new password for a user - ./shortify users resetpw [username]

See ./shortify help for options.

Logging

Logs are very simple at this point. They include (tab seperated) the following information:

• Timestamp
• Request method
• Request URL
• The handler that handled the request
• How long it took to execute

Logs are written to STDOUT and no log file is kept.