NanoLink

NanoLink is a modern, minimal, and secure URL shortener built with Rust and PostgreSQL (using Neon as the database platform). It provides both anonymous and authenticated URL shortening capabilities, allowing users to create either randomly-generated or custom short URLs.

✨ Features

• 🔐 Authentication System

  • Full user registration and login via username and password
  • Secure password hashing using bcrypt
  • JWT-based session management

• 🔗 URL Shortening

  • Anonymous users receive random short URLs
  • Authenticated users can choose custom aliases
  • URLs are stored efficiently in PostgreSQL with SQLx

• 📈 URL Analytics

  • View click counts per short URL
  • Track original long URLs
  • Timestamps for creation and clicks

• 👤 User Dashboard

  • Authenticated users can view all their created links
  • Easily manage or delete short URLs
  • Display click statistics and link metadata

🛠 Tech Stack

Tech	Description
Rust	High-performance backend
Axum	Lightweight web framework
SQLx	Async, compile-time checked queries
Neon/PostgreSQL	Cloud-hosted PostgreSQL DB
JWT	Stateless authentication
Bcrypt	Password hashing
Tokio	Async runtime

📦 Dependencies

Here are some of the key crates used:

[dependencies]
tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] }
sqlx = { version = "0.7", features = ["postgres", "runtime-tokio-rustls", "macros", "uuid", "chrono"] }
dotenvy = "0.15"
uuid = { version = "1", features = ["v4", "serde"] }
chrono = { version = "0.4", features = ["serde"] }
serde = { version = "1", features = ["derive"] }
rand = "0.8"
anyhow = "1.0.98"
serde_json = "1.0"
axum = "0.8.4"
bcrypt = "0.15"
jsonwebtoken = "9.2"

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Rust
• A PostgreSQL database (Neon or local)
• Docker (optional, for local DB testing)

Environment Variables

Create a .env file in the root:

DATABASE_URL=postgres://<user>:<password>@<host>/<db>
JWT_SECRET=<your_jwt_secret>

Running the Project

# Install dependencies
cargo build

# Run migrations (if using SQLx)
sqlx migrate run

# Start the server
cargo run

🔐 Authentication Flow

• Signup: Users register with a username and password. Passwords are hashed with bcrypt.
• Login: On successful login, a JWT token is returned.
• Authorization: Authenticated routes require a valid JWT token in the Authorization header.

📚 API Overview

Method	Endpoint	Description
POST	/api/signup	Register a new user
POST	/api/login	Authenticate and receive JWT
POST	/api/shorten	Create short URL (auth optional)
GET	/u/:short_code	Redirect to original URL
GET	/api/profile	Get user's URL history (auth required)
DELETE	/api/url/:id	Delete a URL (auth required)

📏 URL Logic

• Anonymous users receive short codes like: abc123
• Authenticated users can create codes like: my-custom-link
• Collision handling and validation included

📄 Roadmap

• Rate limiting for abuse prevention
• Expiry dates for links
• QR code generation
• Web frontend with Axum + Yew or Tauri

🧪 Testing

Run unit and integration tests with:

cargo test

🤝 Contributing

Contributions, feature requests, and feedback are welcome! Please open issues or PRs.

📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.

Built with ❤️ in Rust for speed, safety, and simplicity.