pacebin

A dead-simple, self-hostable, filesystem-backed pastebin, written in C using Mongoose.

This project is largely based off of my clink project. Almost all the main code comes from there, and it uses the exact same design philosophies.

Please access this project on my Gitea instance, NOT GitHub.

Maintenance Note

This project is still maintained! Occasional certificate expirations may occur, this is due to disputes between my ISP and I regarding server hosting and certificate renewal. Please be patient, I have a life. :)

Features

• Tiny executable size (~80kb)
• No dependencies, just libc
• Extremely simple to use--basic POST and GET
• No bloated webapp, just a simple reverse proxy
• Super light on resources
• Basic and easy paste deletion
• Custom short paste links
• Fast!
• Basic filesystem storage--easy to manage without external programs/libraries

Self-Hosting

You can host this yourself.

Note: all commands here are done as root.

Building & Installing

To build this project, you'll need a libc implementation (only tested with glibc), optionally a separate libcrypt implementation, and Git. Most Linux distributions should have all of these by default, but in case yours doesn't:

• pacman -S glibc libxcrypt git
• emerge --ask sys-libs/glibc dev-vcs/git
• apt install glibc git

1. Clone this repository:

git clone https://git.swurl.xyz/swirl/pacebin && cd pacebin

2. Now, you need to compile. When compiling, you can optionally choose to disable the ability to use custom links for pastes. This can easily be done by setting DISABLE_CUSTOM_LINKS to 1; i.e. make DISABLE_CUSTOM_LINKS=1. Defaults to 0, enabling them.

make

3. Now, you need to install. NGINX and systemd files are provided in this project; you may choose not to install them.

For all install commands, you may optionally provide prefix and DESTDIR options. This is useful for packagers; i.e. for a PKGBUILD: make prefix=/usr DESTDIR=${pkgdir} install.

Available install commands are as follows:

• make install installs the executable, NGINX, and systemd files.
• make install-bin installs the executable file.
• make install-systemd installs the systemd file, as well as its environment file.
• make install-nginx installs the NGINX file.

For example, on a non-systemd system using NGINX, you would run make install-bin install-nginx.

4. If using systemd, change the environment file to reflect your desired options:

vim /etc/pacebin.conf

5. You can now enable and start the service:

systemctl enable --now pacebin

The server should now be running on localhost at port 8081.

NGINX Reverse Proxy

An NGINX file is provided with this project. Sorry, no support for Apache or lighttpd or anything else; should've chosen a better HTTP server.

For this, you'll need NGINX (obviously), certbot, and its NGINX plugin. Most Linux distributions should have these in their repositories, i.e.:

• pacman -S nginx certbot-nginx
• emerge --ask www-servers/nginx app-crypt/certbot-nginx
• apt install nginx python-certbot-nginx

This section assumes you've already followed the last.

1. Change the domain in the NGINX file:

sed -i 's/your.doma.in/[DOMAIN HERE]' /etc/nginx/sites-available/pacebin

2. Enable the site:

ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-{available,enabled}/pacebin

3. Enable HTTPS for the site:

certbot --nginx -d [DOMAIN HERE]

4. Enable and start NGINX:

systemctl enable --now nginx

If it's already running, reload:

systemctl reload nginx

Your site should be running at https://your.doma.in. Test it by going there, and trying the examples. If they don't work, open an issue.

Contributions

Contributions are always welcome.

FAQ

A user has made a paste containing bad content! What do I do?

Clean it up, janny!

Deleting a paste can be done simply by running:

rm /srv/pacebin/*/BADLINKHERE

Replace /srv/pacebin with whatever your data directory is.

Can I blacklist certain words from being used in pastes or custom short links?

No. While it might be possible through some NGINX stuff, this is not supported nor it is encouraged.

Is this an IP grabber?

No, unless someone links to grabify or something. If access logs are turned on, then the server administrator can see your IP, but management of access logs is up to them.

Can I use this without a reverse proxy?

Probably, I don't know. Won't have HTTPS though, so either way, I heavily recommend you use a reverse proxy.

What's the seed for?

The seed is used for generating deletion keys. Do not share it whatsoever.

What operating systems are supported?

I've only tested it on my Arch Linux server, but it should work perfectly fine on all Linux distributions. Probably doesn't work on Windows.

Can I run this in a subdirectory of my site?

Yes. Simply put the proxy_pass directive in a subdirectory, i.e.:

location /paste {
    proxy_pass http://localhost:8081;
}

Why'd you make this?

Every pastebin sucks. Simple as. All of the self-hostable options I could find had problems, including:

• Loads of unnecessary dependencies
• Huge executable size (Go lol)
• Used some bloated webapp with no basic API
• Feature bloat; i.e. encryption, password protection, file upload, syntax highlighting, etc.
• Written in Ruby, or some other bad language
• No direct reverse-proxy (or in some cases, even HTTP) support
• Reliance on statically serving the index files
• Reliance on static configuration like the host
• Reliance on other services (i.e. link shorteners)

This project is intended to be a pastebin that is as simple as possible. Literally just make, view, and delete pastes. That's it.

If you, by chance, need encryption, password protection, etc. then use PrivateBin or something.