link-context

Short URLs with context

A simple server to generate unique short URLs and attach some contextual data to them.

A live version is available for testing http://asc.li for testing purposes.

An example using the API has is also available on http://addsumcontext.com

Usage

Create a new short link GET /v0/new/link/

http://localhost/v0/new/link/?context=`CONTEXT`&redirect=`REDIRECT`

CONTEXT can be any arbitrary string and is the data we want to attach to the link we are about to create.

REDIRECT where do you want the short link to go when clicked on. Must be a valid URL.

Example:

http://asc.li/v0/new/link?context=bob&redirect=http://ubunutu.com

response --> {
  "link": "http://asc.li/obdkf21"
}

This attaches the data bob to our link and will redirect to http://ubuntu.com when someone clicks on the new http://asc.li/obdkf21 link.

Getting link statistics

Find by specific short URL GET /v0/link/

http://localhost/v0/link/?path=`PATH`

PATH The short URL we want statistics for.

Example:

http://asc.li/v0/link/?path=http://asc.li/obdkf21

response --> {
  "context": "bob",
  "clicks": 17,
  "link": "http://asc.li/obdkf21",
  "redirect": "http://ubuntu.com"
}

Here we have retrieved the data from the example above. Currently the only additional data tracked is the number of clicks the link has had.

Match on context GET /v0/search/

http://localhost/v0/search/?context=`CONTEXT`

CONTEXT The context you want to search for (does not need to be exact match)

Example:

http://localhost/v0/search/?context=bo

response --> [{
    "context": "bob",
    "clicks": 17,
    "link": "http://asc.li/obdkf21",
    "redirect": "http://ubuntu.com"
  }]

Here we have retrieved an array of objects matching the search criteria of bo. If no results are found an empty array is returned.

Running Locally

If you don't want to use http://asc.li and would rather run your own instance:

$ npm install link-context
$ cd node_modules/link-context
$ npm start

Requirements:

• node/npm ~ 0.10.33
• MongoDB ~ 2.6.x

In you want the server running constantly, bring it up with naught:

$ naught start server.js

Requirements:

• naught installed globally

If you're using naught and running Ubuntu, take a look at the service.sh file. Copy it to /etc/init.d/link-context and setup the configuration variables as defined below in the service file. SERVER_DIR also needs to be defined, which should be where you have link-context installed.

# Start, stop, restart the server
$ service link-context start | stop | restart

CONFIG

Configuration can be done by setting the following environmental variables.

Environmental Variable	Description
CONTEXT_SEED	shortid seed
CONTEXT_PORT	Port the server will run on (default 8000)
CONTEXT_DOMAIN	Domain your server is running, e.g. http://asc.li

Authentication

There is currently no authentication supported. The aim is to make it as easy as possible to test in a browser or with cURL. If your link context is not open data, run your own instance and use a firewall to limit access to the API.

TODO: Token based authentication coming soon to the http://asc.li incase you don't want to maintain your own instance ;)