Mjr.sh - manjaro shortlink service

Contributions Software
1

Recently I needed a tiny URL that I can share, but switch out the target address from occasionally.

Of course there is an abundance of services fulfilling that need. From my research most of them were either

  1. not free of charge and full of tracking and at least full of ads
  2. claimed to be anonymous, but were closed source
  3. open-source, but rather complicated to self host (a kv-store, a db and a decent webserver for such a tiny app?)
  4. lots of (mostly tracking and management-related) features I neither wanted, nor needed

For that reason, I figured I could just create such a service - isn’t that little more than a key-value store and a little http-service in front of it?

So here it is. I think it is neat enough to be shared. The infrastructure is hosted on cloudflare and their free tier is generous (even though I wanted to subscribe for their pro plan for a while).

It is early days with this and of course feedback is welcome.

I also started working on a little shell-helper, shipped with manjaro-sway.

https://github.com/manjaro-contrib/mjr.sh

3 Likes
2

Nice.
I have wanted to set up a similar service ‘serverless’ and it can be done, but I was never able to finalize it.
Such a service can also work symbiotically with a serverless pastebin service.
I do have one of those … the reason the combination would be extra nice is because the notepad/pastebin encodes the text directly in the URL. Which is nifty - but could be made more convenient when combined with a shortener.

3

In manjaro sway I have this mini alias for termbin. The problem with hosting such a service: copyright/hate-speach/data protection. But I agree, it would be a nice pair. Will think about it.

Edit: Now I get it. With encoding the content into the URL, you’re working around that a bit.

4

Hosting link-forwarding has the same problems.
(whether hosting a link to somewhere else is considered a legal breach may depend…)
Its arguably more abused than the other stuff.

Like this note on 0x0.st


I would like termbin if it didnt use netcat.
But I have a few similar functions;

0paste() {
    local url='https://0x0.st'
    if (( $# )); then
        local file
        for file; do
            curl -F "file=@""$file""" "$url" 
        done
    else
        curl -F 'file=@-' "$url"
    fi
}

paster() {
    local url='https://rustypaste.shuttleapp.rs'
    if (( $# )); then
        local file
        for file; do
            curl -F "file=@""$file""" "$url" 
        done
    else
        curl -F 'file=@-' "$url"
    fi
}

tempload() {
    local url='https://temp.sh/upload'
    if (( $# )); then
        local file
        for file; do
            curl -F "file=@""$file""" "$url" 
        done
    else
        curl -F 'file=@-' "$url"
    fi
}
5

whats the problem with netcat? the installed size is like 66kb and for me it has been a staple for debugging weird network issues…

6

Netcat has had a number of security flaws and can be leveraged for nefarious things rather easily.

https://www.google.com/search?q=netcat+reverse+shell

(remote shell access, hurray!)

Especially depending on which netcat is actually being used.

I guess its not as insane as using telnet. (some pasters do)

But I would still avoid it in general, especially when there are alternatives.

1 Like
7

Ah, thanks for explaining. Will think about the alternatives. We used 0x0.st in the past, but it worked rather unreliably.

8

Huh. I wonder if it was due to some down time at some point?
I cant recall an issue with it besides when that link function was disabled and I did not realize.

Some can also appear flaky due to security - temp.sh wont allow connections from a range of known vpn addresses so if you are on windscribe it wont work, etc.

I havent updated this intro in a while but you may by interested in this:

9

Could the gemini protocol be potentially leveraged for something similar?

If it were possible, I dare say most (if not all) of the above-listed annoyances might be avoided.

10

But … its a whole different protocol.
Arguably it is out of scope as arguably all of the above is talking about IP/HTTP.
Not to be snarky but the proposition is roughly equivalent to ‘why not use gopher?’.
Even if taken as valid it presents at least the issue of compatibility - the gemini protocol isnt something that will just ‘work’ on some random puppy ISO you are booting off of, or the broken headless server you have. You would need to add a gemini client or similar.
Or thats how I understand it. I’m no gemini expert.

11

Neither am I.

However, that it selectively allows access via HTTP gave me cause to consider what else might be achievable; certainly not a shortlink service, due to obvious limitations of the progenitor Gopher.

A pastebin of sorts (pastebins were mentioned earlier) might possibly be authored via gemini but accessed via HTTP by the intended recipient(s). How this would work in practice, I can’t say, but likely not from an ISO, as you say.

That’s really the extent of this pondering. :slight_smile: