BaseURL Rewrite

Tested with YOURLS, version 1.9.2.

Usage

General

This plugin rewrites short URLs by replacing the original base URL (as specified by YOURLS_SITE in config.php) with the base URL given in the plugin's configuration option as specified in the settings. If the base URL configuration option is empty, the original short URL stays untouched, and is returned.

This base URL configuration option can be different from the domain from which YOURLS is served (i.e., YOURLS_SITE). This plugin rewrites short URLs such that they point to another (base) URL (e.g., https://acme.com/r), which can be helpful if you want to serve YOURLS from a different sub-domain (e.g., https://link.acme.com), but generate short links for a sub-directory of the domain for your main web presence (e.g., https://acme.com/r).

When using the REST API, this plugin provides an option to specify the name of a query parameter, whose value holds a base URL to use for the generated short URL. For instance, if we name the query parameter base_url in the plugin configuration, we can request a short URL as follows:

curl "https://lnk.acme.com/yourls-api.php?signature=XXXXXXXXXX&action=shorturl&format=txt&base_url=https://pink.pony&url=https://this.is.my.veeeeery.long.url.com/with/a/very/deep/path.html?and=also&some=query&para=meters"

https://pink.pony/vUvNW

We can freely choose the name of the query parameter, e.g., we can name it foo_bar, and YOURLS will return the same result:

curl "https://lnk.acme.com/yourls-api.php?signature=XXXXXXXXXX&action=shorturl&format=txt&foo_bar=https://pink.pony&url=https://this.is.my.veeeeery.long.url.com/with/a/very/deep/path.html?and=also&some=query&para=meters"

https://pink.pony/vUvNW

💡 NOTE: You must take care that the other end (e.g., https://acme.com/r, https://pink.pony) performs redirects back to the site where YOURLS is served from (e.g. https://link.acme.com).

URL precedence

The short link's base URL is chosen as follws:

1. If the query parameter name is set in the plugin's configuration, and YOURLS is accessed via the REST API with the query parameter assigned, the query parameter's value is used as the generated shortlink's base URL.

2. If the query parameter name is not set in the configuration, or no query parameter is given in the query string when accessing YOURLS via the REST API, the plugin's default base URL as configured in the plugin settings is used as the generated shortlink's base URL.

3. If no default base URL is set in the plugin configuration, the value of YOURLS_SITE is used as the generated shortlink's base URL.

Example

Lets assume the following:

YOURLS_SITE: "https://link.acme.com" (a constant defined in `config.php`)
ck_base_url_default: "https://acme.com/r" (a configuration option)
ck_base_url_query_parameter: "base_url" (a configuration option)

Then, YOURLS will create the (example) short link (when accessed from the YOURLS admin interface, or from the REST API without specifying the base_url query parameter):

https://acme.com/r/Ac3fG

instead of

https://link.acme.com/Ac3fG

If invoking YOURLS via its REST API while setting the base_url query parameter to https://foo.bar, YOURLS returns the following shortlink (let's say the full API call is specified like this: https://lnk.acme.com/yourls-api.php?signature=XXXXXXXXXX&action=shorturl&format=txt&base_url=https://foo.bar&url=https://short.this/url/for/me):

https://foo.bar/Ac3fG

It is assumed that the system behind https://acme.com/r performs (e.g., wildcard) redirects from https://acme.com/r/(.*) to https://link.acme.com/$1 which are then further redirected by YOURLS to the respective target URLs.

Installation

The easy way: git

1. Change directory to user/plugins and clone the git repository of this plugin:

   cd user/plugins git clone https://github.com/christian-krieg/yourls-plugin-baseurl-rewrite

2. Go to the Plugins administration page (e.g. http://link.acme.com/admin/plugins.php`) and activate the plugin.

3. Have fun!

The hard way: manual copy

1. Change to directory user/plugins:

   cd user/plugins
   

2. Download the latest stable release of the plugin from https://github.com/christian-krieg/yourls-plugin-base-url-rewrite/releases, e.g.:

   wget -c https://github.com/christian-krieg/yourls-plugin-base-url-rewrite/archive/refs/tags/1.0.0.tar.gz
   

3. Unzip the archive to user/plugins, e.g.:

   tar -xavvf 1.0.0.tar.gz
   

4. Eventually upload the unzipped archive to your YOURLS instance (e.g., using ftp or sftp)

5. Create a symlink to the extracted folder, and name it yourls-plugin-baseurl-rewrite (basically we remove the version string), e.g.:

   ln -s yourls-plugin-baseurl-rewrite-1.0.0 yourls-plugin-baseurl-rewrite
   

6. Go to the Plugins administration page (e.g. http://link.acme.com/admin/plugins.php) and activate the plugin.

7. Have fun!

Updating

The easy way: git

1. Move into the plugin's directory, and pull the plugin's latest changes::

   git pull

2. Eventually, check out a specific version:

   git checkout 1.1.0

3. Configure the plugin in the administration page

4. Have fun!

The hard way: manual download and copy

Follow the installation instructions for manual copy, and choose the most recent version.

License

This package is licensed under the MIT License.