# urls-txt

a _really_ simple url shortener: less than 200 lines of Rust and one dependency (tokio).

## usage

0. clone and install:

    ```
    git clone https://git.alv.cx/alvierahman90/urls-txt.git
    cd urls-txt
    cargo install --path .
    ```
1. create a list of links:

   ```
   lines that don't start with a slash (/) are ignore (they're comments)
   shortlink followed by redirect link, separated by a space character
   / http://alv.cx everything after the link is ignored (they're comments)
   /urls-txt http://git.alv.cx/alvierahman90/urls-txt
   ```

2. run:

   ```
   urls-txt path/to/urls.txt
   ```

   the default bind address is `127.0.0.0:3000`.
   this can be changed using the environment variable `URLS_TXT_BIND_ADDRESS`.

## usage (docker)

a working [dockerfile](./Dockerfile) and [compose file](./compose.yaml) are provided.

## a note on case insensitivity

all shortlinks are case insenitive,
due to the lack of [urlencoding/decoding](#a-note-on-urlencoded-characters).

## a note on urlencoded characters

this program does not decode urlencoded strings before checking if strings match.
this is a deliberate choice to keep things as simple as possible.

avoid using links that may be encoded.

for links that will necessarily get encoded (still discouraged) (such as emojis),
put the urlencoded string.
for example, for the link <http://pls.cx/🤬> the following line is in my urls.txt:

```
/🤬 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9 you may want the non-encoded version in case a client does not encode it? idk
/%f0%9f%a4%ac https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_of_Nestl%C3%A9
```

## why?

all url shorteners i've come across are too complicated:
they have account management and remote APIs and whatnot.
too complicated.

this includes my own [sus url shortener](https://pls.cx/sus),
which for some reason i decided should use redis for its database and have a HTTP API for
updating it.

### why not just configure your reverse proxy?

good question.
i'm not sure, but i think i want to separate my concerns?
you might just want to configure your reverse proxy instead:

#### caddy

```
pls.cx { 
   redir / http://alv.cx
   redir /urls-txt https://git.alv.cx/alvierahman90/urls-txt
}
```

#### nginx

```
location / { return 301 http://alv.cx; }
location /urls-txt { return 301 https://git.alv.cx/alvierahman90/urls-txt; }
```

#### apache

there's probably a way ¯\_(ツ)_/¯