Raspberry Pi Shortcut Network

Note: This is a personal project created primarily for my own use and to fit my specific home network setup.

This project provides a local DNS-based shortcut system for your home network.

• http://maps/ and http://excalidraw/ are static Nginx redirects (as an examples, you can add/delete as you wish)
• http://to/ handles dynamic user-defined links stored in SQLite.
• http://to/link provides a management UI powered by Rust & HTMX.

Features

• Dashboard: Manage all your short links at http://to/link.
• Fuzzy Search: Find links quickly even with typos (powered by SQLite FTS5).
• Copy to Clipboard: Quickly share your shortcuts.
• Smart 404 Handling: If you navigate to a non-existent short link (e.g., http://to/new-idea), the app acts as a creation page, prompting you to define the target URL immediately.
• Fast & Lightweight: Built with Rust, Axum, and SQLite for minimal resource usage on Raspberry Pi.

Architecture

graph TD
    Client["Client Device<br/>(PC/Phone)"] -- "DNS Query: to, maps..." --> DNS["RPi: Dnsmasq"]
    DNS -- "Resolve to RPi IP" --> Client
    Client -- "HTTP Request (port 80)" --> Nginx["RPi: Nginx"]
    
    subgraph "Raspberry Pi"
        DNS
        Nginx
        
        subgraph "Nginx Routing"
            Nginx -- "Host: maps, excalidraw" --> Ext["External Sites"]
            Nginx -- "Host: to" --> RustApp["Rust App<br/>(127.0.0.1:3000)"]
        end
        
        RustApp -- "Read/Write" --> SQLite[("SQLite DB")]
    end

Loading

Setup & Deployment

1. Configure Environment

Copy the example environment file and fill in your Raspberry Pi's details (IP, user, target directory):

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your favorite editor

2. DNS Server Configuration (dnsmasq)

Ensure /etc/dnsmasq.conf on your Raspberry Pi includes:

expand-hosts
domain=lan
local=/lan/

3. Deploy

The provided deploy.sh script handles building (using cross or cargo), generating configuration files from templates, and installing the systemd service.

chmod +x deploy.sh
./deploy.sh

Manual Configurations (If needed)

Nginx Configuration

The deployment script generates a tailored configuration at nginx/to-links.conf. To enable it manually:

sudo cp nginx/to-links.conf /etc/nginx/sites-available/
sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/to-links.conf /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/
sudo nginx -t && sudo systemctl reload nginx

Dnsmasq Shortcuts

The script generates dnsmasq/shortcuts.conf with your RPi's IP. You can include this in your dnsmasq configuration or copy its contents to /etc/hosts.