Lonk

A very simple link shortener, written in Rust, made to self host.

What is lonk

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.

Serving lonk

lonk can be served with docker-compose (recommended) or as a binary.

Serving with docker-compose

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.)

Serving as a binary

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 case lonk is exploitable. By running lonk 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

Contributing

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.

Licence

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.

Support

Getting donations, no matter how small, lets me know that people use and appreciate the software I've published.

💕 If you like and use lonk, consider buying me a coffee.