Crate shortener 

shortener

shortener is a small URL shortener written in Rust. It serves HTTP redirects, stores mappings in SQLite, and optionally protects URL creation with API keys.

Features

• Plain HTTP interface with no frontend dependency.
• SQLite-backed URL storage.
• Random alphanumeric codes with configurable length.
• Custom aliases using letters, digits, dashes (-), and underscores (_).
• Optional bearer-token authentication for URL creation.
• Access logging to stdout and a log file.
• Reverse-proxy support through --trust-proxy.
• Optional redirect from / to a configured main page.
• URL management through shortener-url CLI.
• User and API key management through shortener-key CLI.

Installation

• Cargo

  cargo install shortener

  By default, shortener uses the system’s SQLite library. If you don’t have it installed, or want to use the bundled version, add --features bundled-sqlite to the cargo install command.

• Homebrew

  brew install zhongruoyu/tap/shortener

• Release binaries

  shortener’s GitHub releases come with pre-built binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Download the binaries from the latest release.

• Docker

  A Docker image is available on Docker Hub as zhongruoyu/shortener, and on GitHub Container Registry as ghcr.io/zhongruoyu/shortener. Use the latest tag or a specific version tag to track releases, and main to track the latest commit on the main branch.

  See Run with Docker for usage instructions with Docker.

Usage

shortener comes with three executables:

• shortener: the HTTP server.
• shortener-url: a CLI for creating and managing short URLs directly.
• shortener-key: a CLI for user and API key management.

Starting the server

Start a local instance:

shortener \
  --listen-port 8080 \
  --url-prefix http://localhost:8080/ \
  --database shortener.db \
  --log-file access.log

Useful flags:

• --auth: require Authorization: Bearer ... for POST requests.
• --main-page URL: redirect / to a separate landing page.
• --code-length N: change generated code length. The default is 6.
• --trust-proxy: use the first X-Forwarded-For address for logging.

See the full CLI help with shortener --help.

Creating and using short URLs

Create a short URL by sending the target URL as the plain-text request body:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/ -d 'https://example.com/some/long/path'

The response is the new shortened URL as plain text.

Create a custom alias by posting to /<code>:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/docs -d 'https://example.com/docs'

Open the generated short URL and the server returns a 302 Found redirect to the stored destination.

Managing short URLs

shortener-url provides a CLI for managing short URLs directly through the database:

# Create a short URL with an auto-generated code
shortener-url --database shortener.db create 'https://example.com/some/path'
# Create a short URL with a custom code
shortener-url --database shortener.db create 'https://example.com/docs' docs
# List all short URLs
shortener-url --database shortener.db list
# List all short URLs in JSON format (also supported: CSV and table)
shortener-url --database shortener.db list --format json
# Get details of a short URL by code
shortener-url --database shortener.db get docs
# Delete a short URL by code
shortener-url --database shortener.db delete docs

Some other options are also available. See shortener-url --help for full usage instructions.

Authentication and API keys

When --auth is enabled, only authenticated POST requests can create short URLs, though GET requests for URL redirection remain unauthenticated. Use shortener-key to manage users and API keys against the same SQLite database:

shortener-key --database shortener.db create-user alice
shortener-key --database shortener.db create-key alice

Then create a short URL with the returned key:

curl -X POST http://localhost:8080/ \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer MY_API_KEY' \
  -d 'https://example.com/some/long/path'

Other management commands include:

• list-users
• delete-user <username>
• check-key <key-or-hash>
• list-keys <username>
• delete-key <key-or-hash>

See shortener-key --help for full usage instructions.

Run with Docker

Run the server and persist the database and logs in a local directory:

mkdir -p data
docker run --rm \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v "$PWD/data:/data" \
  zhongruoyu/shortener \
  --listen-port 8080 \
  --url-prefix http://localhost:8080/ \
  --database /data/shortener.db \
  --log-file /data/access.log

You can also run shortener-url or shortener-key inside the same image by overriding the entrypoint:

docker run --rm \
  --entrypoint shortener-url \
  -v "$PWD/data:/data" \
  zhongruoyu/shortener \
  --database /data/shortener.db list
docker run --rm \
  --entrypoint shortener-key \
  -v "$PWD/data:/data" \
  zhongruoyu/shortener \
  --database /data/shortener.db create-user alice

Shell completions

Shell completions are available for shortener and shortener-key. To enable them, add the relevant command to your shell’s profile:

# Bash
source <(shortener completions bash)
source <(shortener-url completions bash)
source <(shortener-key completions bash)
# Zsh
source <(shortener completions zsh)
source <(shortener-url completions zsh)
source <(shortener-key completions zsh)
# Fish
shortener completions fish | source
shortener-url completions fish | source
shortener-key completions fish | source
# PowerShell
shortener completions powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression
shortener-url completions powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression
shortener-key completions powershell | Out-String | Invoke-Expression

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.

Structs

Config

Runtime configuration for the shortener server.

Database

Thread-safe wrapper around a SQLite connection for URL and API key storage.

Logger

A simple logger that writes timestamped messages to both stdout and a file.

Shortener

The URL shortener HTTP server.

UrlInfo

Information about a shortened URL entry.

Enums

DatabaseError

Errors that can arise from database operations.

Functions

generate_code

Generate a random alphanumeric code of the specified length.

is_valid_code

Check if a code is non-empty and contains only valid characters (letters, digits, hyphens, and underscores).

version_string

Returns a human-readable version string that includes the package version, Git commit hash, build date, and target triple.