url-shortener

A MEAN url shortener.

Running

This requires mongo and node (and optionally nodemon) to be installed already on your platform.

git clone https://github.com/met-office-lab/url-shortener.git
cd url-shortener
npm install
node src/index.js # Or `nodemon src/index.js` for auto restarts on code changes

Usage

The simplest way to create a short url is using the web interface. Just visit the address for the node server you are running.

That might be http://localhost:3000/ when developing locally or http://domain.tld/ once you have it running on a server and DNS entries in place.

You can then generate new short codes using the form.

Once a short code has been created just visit http://domain.tld/:short and you will be redirected to the specified url.

Example http://domain.tld/ueKZ8y2 might redirect to http://www.example.com/my/very/long/url/which/is/too/long/for/easy/sharing.html

You can also use the API directly or to create other clients for creating short urls.

API

All API responses are json and take the form of:

{
  "status": http_code,
  "message": human_readable_string,
  "result": data_object
}

POST http://domain.tld/api/create

Creates a new shortened url.

Request

Parameter	Description
url	url to be shortened.
short	(optional) short code to use. If not set one will be generated for you.

Response result

Property	Description
url	the url which has been shortened.
short	the short code used.
baseurl	the base url of the server.

Example

$ curl -d url=http://www.informaticslab.co.uk/ http://domain.tld/api/create
{"status":201,"message":"Success, short created!","result":{"url":"http://www.informaticslab.co.uk/","short":"nUAm7HC","baseurl":"http://domain.tld"}}

GET http://domain.tld/api/check/:short

Returns whether a short code exists. Will return 404 if it doesn't exist.

Response result

Property	Description
url	the url which has been shortened.
short	the short code used.
baseurl	the base url of the server.

Example

$ curl http://domain.tld/api/check/nUAm7HC
{"status":200,"message":"Short exists","result":{"url":"http://www.informaticslab.co.uk/","short":"nUAm7HC","baseurl":"http://domain.tld"}}

$ curl http://domain.tld/api/check/h8Jk0sl
{"status":404,"message":"Short not found","result":null}

GET http://domain.tld/api/genshort

Returns a random string to use as a short.

Response result

Property	Description
short	the generated short code.
baseurl	the base url of the server.

Example

$ curl http://domain.tld/api/genshort
{"status":200,"message":"Generated","result":{"short":"h1ZCaYw","baseurl":"http://domain.tld"}}

Runtime environment variables

To configure your server you can set some environment variables before starting the node application. If you're using docker simply pass the variables in the run command with -e VAR=value, otherwise set them with export VAR=value within your bash environment.

Variable	Description	Default
DOMAIN	The domain name your server is running on.	localhost
PORT	The port to run your node express server on.	3000
DB_HOST	The hostname of your mongodb server.	mongo
DB_PORT	The port of your mongodb server.	27017
DB_NAME	The database name to use.	urlshort
SHORT_LENGTH	The length of a randomly generated short code	7
ROOT_REDIRECT	The url to redirect to from http://domain.tld:port/.	/web/index.html

License

GPLv3