zph / serverless-url-shortener

URL shortener for AWS Lambda and S3

Serverless URL Shortener

A lightweight URL shortener built with the Serverless Framework using AWS Lambda and S3. Each URL redirection is stored as an S3 object with the Website-Redirect-Location metadata key set to the forwarding web address. AWS Lambda is used to create an API to save these objects. The website is served from the same S3 bucket.

Setup

Install dependencies

Head on over to the Serverless Framework docs and run through their quick-start guide. It’s mentioned in there as part of your setup, but be sure to install the AWS CLI and configure your AWS credentials. Then run npm install to get the NPM dependencies for the project.

Setup Route 53

Create Route 53 hosted zones for both the API and website.

Add environment variables

Create a copy of .env.example for each "stage" that you wish to deploy to (e.g .env.staging, .env.production) and then customise each configuration file as appropriate for your setup.

Name	Description	Required
BUCKET	S3 bucket that will store URL redirects	Y
REGION	AWS region to deploy to	Y
API_URL	API endpoint the website will interact with	Y
API_DOMAIN	Custom API domain the API will be served from	Y
API_HOSTED_ZONE	AWS Route53 hosted zone ID with the custom API domain	Y
API_CERTIFICATE_NAME	AWS Certificate Authority certificate name for API domain	Y
API_BASE_ENDPOINT	API Gateway base path (e.g. prefix) for lambda function	Y
SHORT_URL	Base URL of shortened links (without trailing slash)	Y
SHORT_DOMAIN	Custom short domain to serve the website	Y
SHORT_HOSTED_ZONE	AWS Route53 hosted zone ID with the custom short domain	Y
SHORT_DOMAIN_ACM_ARN	AWS Certificate Authority certificate name for short domain	Y
TITLE	Customize the title of the website and form	N
CREDIT	Customize the credit name in the footer	N
CREDIT_URL	Customize the credit link in the footer	N
AWS_PROFILE	AWS profile setup in ~/.aws/credentials	N

Deploy API

Run npm run deploy to deploy the API and website to AWS. The resources defined in serverless.yml will be automatically instantiated using CloudFormation. Prefix with the stage you want to deploy (e.g. STAGE=production npm run deploy).

Architecture based on serverless-aws-static-websites:

Build template

Run npm run build to build the template with appropriate template variables.

Deploy website

Run npm run deploy:client to deploy the website using the AWS CLI.

You can add a ?vanity= query string parameter to the homepage to specify a vanity (custom) shortcode instead of a randomly-generated one. If the name is already taken, a random one will be used instead.

Libraries used

• Serverless Framework for project structure and deployment.
• PaperCSS Framework for the frontend design.
• jQuery to simplify working with the DOM and making AJAX queries.
• nanoid to generate random paths with more randomness.
• nanoid-good to help avoid generating any obscene words.