Chhoto URL on Ubuntu 24.04 by cloudimg
by cloudimg
Shorten links on your own server and keep every click in your own Azure subscription.
What this image gives you
Chhoto URL is a deliberately minimal, self-hosted URL shortener written in Rust. Paste a long link and it hands back a short one, either an auto-generated adjective-noun slug or a custom word you choose. Every link can carry a free-text note, count its hits, and expire automatically after a period you set.
Everyday use happens in a small responsive web interface. Everything else happens over a straightforward JSON API with API-key authentication, so shortening can be scripted, wired into internal tooling, or driven from the official command line client.
There is no tracking, no analytics pipeline and no third party in the path. Every link and every click stays in your own Azure subscription.
Secure by default
Upstream Chhoto URL has no default password at all. An unconfigured instance is completely public, so anyone who finds it can create and delete links. This image never ships in that state.
- A unique site password and a unique API key are generated on FIRST BOOT of your own VM and written to a root-only file
- Only Argon2id hashes are stored in the runtime configuration, so the service account never sees a plaintext secret
- The service refuses to start until those secrets exist, so an open or shared-credential deployment is not possible
- The application listens on the loopback interface only and is published through nginx, so there is a single entry point rather than an exposed backend
- Your public address is detected on first boot, so the short links the API returns are usable immediately
What is included
- Chhoto URL 7.5.0, compiled from the upstream source tagged 7.5.0 and pinned to that exact commit
- nginx reverse proxy on port 80 in front of the application on 127.0.0.1:4567
- An embedded SQLite datastore in WAL journal mode, with no external database to run
- systemd units enabled for both the application and nginx
- A fully patched Ubuntu 24.04 LTS base with unattended-upgrades enabled and no swap on the OS disk
- A step-by-step deployment guide proven against the running image
Licensing
Chhoto URL is open source under the MIT licence and is free. The cloudimg charge of $0.04 per vCPU hour covers packaging, security patching, image maintenance and 24/7 expert support.
Support
Backed by 24/7 cloudimg support at support@cloudimg.co.uk.