A very simple link shortener, written in Rust, made to self host.
Lonk provides an HTTP interface where you input a URL, and get a short, standardized URL
(.../l/
plus a sequence of letters and numbers) that will redirect you to the provided
URL.
Such link shorteners can be useful to share links where copy-pasting is not an option, or undesirable.
By default, links shortened with lonk expire after 3 days; this period can be refreshed by resubmitting the URL, without changing the shortened URL.
lonk
can be served with docker-compose
(recommended) or as a binary.
Serving lonk
with docker-compose
is trivial: pull the repository to a chosen
location...
mkdir /etc/lonk
git clone https://git.cumperativa.xyz/meeg_leeto/lonk /etc/lonk
... and serve:
cd /etc/lonk && docker-compose up
By default, this will serve lonk
on localhost:8892
. You can change this port in
docker-compose.yml
. Likewise, you may adjust other parameters in data/config.json
.
Mind that some of these parameters correspond to the container; so, in particular,
you should not change the port or database location in config.json
, unless you make the
corresponding changes in docker-compose.yml
. (If you are unfamiliar with
docker-compose
, just leave these parameters alone; they do not affect your system in any
way.)
Please make sure you know what you are doing.
Although I've tried my best for
lonk
to be correct, I cannot guarantee its safety. Using containerization will provide (at least) some level of extra security, in caselonk
is exploitable. By runninglonk
directly as an executable, you are removing a layer between a potential attacker and your system.
To run lonk
as a binary, preferably create a dedicated user and directory:
root# useradd --no-create-home --disabled-login lonk
root# mkdir /etc/lonk
root# chown lonk:lonk /etc/lonk
... place the lonk executable in that directory...
root# mv lonk /etc/lonk/lonk
root# chown lonk:lonk /etc/lonk/lonk
... and then run the lonk
executable as this user. Configuring lonk
is done the same
as in the docker-compose
case, namely by creating the appropriate config.json
;
for a starting point, run lonk --print-default-config
:
root# sudo -u lonk /bin/bash
lonk$ mkdir /etc/lonk/served
lonk$ /etc/lonk/lonk --print-default-config > etc/lonk/lonk.json
You may set a different configuration file by setting the environment variable
LONK_CONFIG
.
You will have to have Redis running and listening
on the port specified in the configuration file. Also, if you don't want to write your
own HTTP frontend, you'll have to copy the contents of the data
directory from
the repository into the newly created /etc/lonk/served
directory. (Don't forget to
chown lonk:lonk
the copied contents.)
(The frontend is quite minimalist, and I encourage you to look at main.js
and write
your own.)
Finally, serve lonk
(in the location specified in the configuration file):
lonk$ logout
root# sudo -u lonk /etc/lonk/lonk
Pull requests are welcome. Issues are not guaranteed to be addressed. lonk
is
built primarily for self-use, provided to you for free, and not my primary
occupation. Please respect this.
lonk
is licenced under a GNU General Public License, version 3. This
informally means that:
You may copy, distribute and modify the software as long as you track changes/dates in source files. Any modifications to or software including (via compiler) GPL-licensed code must also be made available under the GPL along with build & install instructions.
You can find a copy of the licence under LICENCE
.
Getting donations, no matter how small, lets me know that people use and appreciate the software I've published.
๐ If you like and use lonk
, consider
buying me a coffee.