purls.py

Personal URL Shortener.

Today, we can use bit.ly or goo.gl or any of the other publicly available URL shorteners out there, but doing so limits us in the shortURLs we can choose, because the namespace is crowded with every other user.

With the abundance of new TLDs, it is once again possible for an individual to register a short personal domain relatively cheaply. With that domain in hand, purls.py allows one to quickly and easily host one's own URL shortener with minimal dependencies and almost no setup.

Usage

purls.py runs on port 8880 by default, so if one is running Apache primarily, the following two lines of configuration in the Apache configuration file are sufficient to redirect the prefix /u/ to purls.py.

ProxyPass /u/ http://localhost:8880/
ProxyPassReverse /u/ http://localhost:8880/

The simplest invocation of purls.py requires only the domain prefix of the shortened URL's to be passed. For example, if the domain prefix of the shortened URLs is https://hq6.me/u/, I can invoke purls as follows.

python purls.py https://hq6.me/u/

Warning

purls.py starts an unauthenticated command shell on port 7770 by default. Please make sure that this port is protected by your firewall.

Dependencies

• Python 2.7
• sqlite3 module.

Demo

There is a demo running at https://hq6.me/u.

Please do not assume that short URLs created there will be persisted for any amount of time.