Goalie - A go/ Short-Link Service Implementation

This is an implementation of go/ links which makes it simple to access internal web assets and share them on a corporate network.

Goalie was initially developed by Anton Friberg together with Oscar Svensson, who are both part time student employees at Axis Communications. The backend is written in Python, using a Flask framework called Eve, and stores the shortcuts in a mongoDB database. The frontend utilizes React.js and Redux to make it easy to edit shortcuts. The entire application is deployed using Docker.

Table of Contents

• Goalie
• Table of Contents
• Background
• Notable Features
• Advanced Features
  • Single Target for Multiple Patterns
  • Match Multiple Forms of Spelling
  • Capture Groups Inserted Into Target
  • Wildcards
  • Ranking
• Setup
  • Initial Setup
  • Development Environment
  • Production Hardening
• Troubleshooting
• Contributors & Maintainers
  • Maintainers
  • Contributors

Background

go/ links is a service that is believed to have originated at Google according to this blog post and this GitHub repository. The idea is that people on the corporate network can easily navigate between internal services by directing their browser to http://go/service-name.

For example, if we want to be redirected towards information of our internal git repo we visit http://go/git.

These days it is common to see similar services at many large IT companies.

Notable Features

• Easily create and modify shortcuts for web URLs.
• LDAP/AD authentication.
• Immediate availability of shortcuts to all employees.
• Shortcuts are viewable and searchable by all employees.
• Only an administrator or the owner of the shortcut is able to modify or delete it.

As we have been using this service it has proven to be useful on multiple occasions, for example:

• To avoid having to remember complicated URLs to things such as team meeting slides, documentation pages, important resources and internal services.
• Making it easier to share scattered web resources with new colleagues.
• As a searchable index of available internal web resources.
• As a DNS service for testing environments.
• Sending vanity URLs, instead of complex and hard-to-read URLs, will allow the receiver to more quickly grasp what service or resource the URL provides.

Advanced Features

It may not be apparent at first glance, but the pattern field for a new shortcut actually accepts a regex value. This provides the service with many additional features. We will provide a brief overview by presenting some examples.

Single Target for Multiple Patterns

This allows both go/git and go/gerrit to direct the user to the internal git resource without the need for multiple shortcut entries.

Match Multiple Forms of Spelling

This pattern matches color-code-search, colour-code-search, color-code and colour-code.

Capture Groups Inserted Into Target

This example in particular is very interesting. The first entry allow users to enter go/git/search_string, in the web browser, which then redirects to a search for search_string on the internal git website. However, the second entry allow them to enter go/git/303492/1, which then points to the first patch set of the git commit with the ID 303492.

Wildcards

Some readers probably realize that these regex features are easy to abuse. On inserts we only check for uniqueness, i.e. that the pattern is not already used by another shortcut. We do actually allow wildcard patterns like this:

This would potentially clash with all other shortcuts, and to handle cases such as this we rank shortcuts and try to find the most specific one to redirect the visitor towards.

Ranking

If multiple patterns match the incoming URL string the most specific pattern that matches should be returned. Currently this ranking looks like the following, taking the acronym atf as an example:

This ranking might not be perfect since at[a-z] (at number 6) is probably considered more specific than at. by many users.

Setup

Initial Setup

Before initial setup you must create a file called jwt_secret in a directory called .secrets at the root of the project files. This will contain a 32 byte long random string that is used for token signing. Keep this file secret.

$ mkdir .secrets
$ openssl rand -base64 32 > .secrets/jwt_secret
$ cat .secrets/jwt_secret
Pnpz+WN1fNBv8jFgQ4vFiXECAb+6aASG6Zv7bGrEdIg=

If you have a need to add your own CA certificate for the LDAP endpoint you can do it by placing the CA certificate in a file called ldap_ca_crt in the .secrets folder. You may then simply uncomment the relevant lines in the docker-compose.yml file.

In order to login to the service you need to configure your LDAP connection. This is done in the .env file. Here you can also configure the host mount for the database files and other configurations.

With all configurations in place you may simply start the application with docker-compose.

$ docker-compose up -d --build

Development Environment

During development you may wish to have the application auto-reload changes, which is possible by starting the application using the development compose file.

$ docker-compose -f docker-compose.dev.yml up --build

Python Development

Recommended Python development environment is to utilize a virtual Python environment separate from the system (i.e. pyenv, virtualenv, etc.) with linting provided by PyLint and automatic code formatting by utilizing Black.

Javascript Development

Recommended Javascript development is to have linting provided with ESLint (with React, Airbnb and Prettier plugins) and formatting by Prettier. The recommended package manager is Yarn.

Production Hardening

If you wish to deploy the application to production it is recommended to look at the nginx production configuration file, which enables SSL encryption among other things. The file needs to be configured for your own host and domain. Either replace the existing nginx.conf file or change the Dockerfile reference.

You place the key and certificate in files named go_https_key and go_https_crt in the .secrets folder. Then you can simply uncomment the relevant secrets in the docker-compose file.

Troubleshooting

If you encounter any problems during setup or development please create an issue and we will try to answer as soon as possible.

Contributors & Maintainers

Maintainers

• Anton Friberg

Contributors

• Anton Friberg
• Oscar Svensson