go-links

go-links is a custom url-shortener service that allows users to easily manage their own links. There are lots of options, but I wanted to build my own to make sure it supported my specific use cases.

Once installed, you will want to your DNS Search Suffix to include the domain you installed to. IE: If you're FQDN is go.mysite.com, you would want to set your DNS Search Suffix to mysite.com. Now when you type http://go into your browser, you should be directed to your site.

SSL

Unless you want to sign all of your own certificates with your own root CA which then has to be trusted on all your devices, your SSL cert will most likely have to use an FQDN (go.mysite.com). To help with this, the service redirects all traffic from http://go to the value of the FQDN environment variable. This will allow you to use a certificate covered endpoint for things like SAML.

Setup

Kubernetes

helm repo add golinks https://imdevinc.github.io/go-links
helm repo update
helm install golinks -n golinks --create-namespace --set config.fqdn=go.mysite.com

Config

There are some required and some optional config values depending on how you want to run the app.

Config Option	Environment Variable	Required	Description	Example	Default
port	PORT	false	Port used for app communication	8080	8080
fqdn	FQDN	true	FQDN used for redirects	app.example.com	n/a
storeType	STORE_TYPE	false	Type of storage to use. See storeType for available options	mongo	memory
mongo.username	MONGO_USERNAME	false	The username for the mongodb connection	mongoUser	n/a
mongo.password	MONGO_PASSWORD	false	The password for the mongodb connection	mySecretPassword	n/a
mongo.host	MONGO_HOST	false	The host used for the mongodb connection	mongodb.mongodb	n/a
mongo.dbname	MONGO_DB_NAME	false	The database name used for the mongodb connection	links	n/a
postgres.username	POSTGRES_USERNAME	false	The username for the postgres connection	postgresUser	n/a
postgres.password	POSTGRES_PASSWORD	false	The password for the postgres connection	mySecretPassword	n/a
postgres.host	POSTGRES_HOST	false	The host used for the postgres connection	postgres.postgres	n/a
postgres.dbname	POSTGRES_DB_NAME	false	The database name used for the postgres connection	links	n/a
ssoEntityId	SSO_ENTITY_ID	false	The entity ID used for SAML authentication	golinks	n/a
ssoRequire	SSO_REQUIRE	false	If set to true and SAML auth is misconfigured, will not allow the service to startup	false	true
ssoMetadataFileContents	n/a	false	Sets the metadata XML file content (only used in Helm chart, see SAML configuration section below for more details)	false	<?xml version="1.0">...

StoreType

go-links supports multiple storage types depending on your use case

memory

Warning

Memory store will erase on every service restart, it is not recommended for production workloads and should only be used for testing

The memory store is the default store type and stores all data in memory. When you restart the service, all existing data will be lost.

file

The file memory store keeps all data in a local file stored at ./links.json. This store is not recommended for high traffic use cases as the query methods will be slower at high traffic levels.

mongo

The mongo store type stores data in a mongodb database. The following config values are required when using the mongo store type:

• mongo.username
• mongo.password
• mongo.host
• mongo.dbname It is expected that the database will already exist, and the service will also create the appropriate indexes if they haven't been created yet.

postgres

The postgres store type stores data in a postgres database. The following config values are required when using the postgres store type:

• postgres.username
• postgres.password
• postgres.host
• postgres.dbname It is expected that the database postgres.dbname will already exist and the service will create the needed table if it does not exist.

SAML Authentication

You can configure SAML authentication for the service to only allow specific actors. The following configuration options are required for SAML authentication to work properly:

• ssoEntityId
• ssoMetadataFileContents You can also set ssoRequire: true if you want the service to fail when SAML auth is not configured correctly.

Using SAML authentication also tracks who created each link for auditing.