rustbin

A minimalist pastebin and URL shortener written in Rust.

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Features

• Syntax highlighting — 400+ languages powered by syntect with a GitHub Dark theme
• Language detection — automatic detection via filename extension or Enry classifier (Go FFI)
• Markdown rendering — GitHub Flavoured Markdown compatible with syntax-highlighted code blocks
• URL shortening — paste a URL to get a short redirect link instantly
• Social previews — generates 1200×630 PNG preview images for social media embeds
• Paste expiration — set optional TTLs; expired pastes are cleaned up automatically
• LRU caching — rendered HTML and preview images are cached in memory
• Line linking — click a line number to link to it; shift-click to select a range
• Single binary — assets, fonts, and syntax definitions are all embedded

Installation

From source

Prerequisites: Rust (edition 2024) and Go (for the Enry FFI).

git clone https://github.com/perosar/rustbin
cd rustbin
cargo build --release

The compiled binary will be at target/release/rustbin.

Usage

Running the server

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env as needed
./target/release/rustbin

The server starts on http://0.0.0.0:3000 by default.

Creating pastes

Web UI — open the root URL in your browser and paste content into the textarea.

curl:

# Create a paste from a file
curl -F 'file=@main.rs' https://example.com

# Create a paste from stdin
echo 'fn main() {}' | curl -F 'file=@-' https://example.com

# Create a paste with an expiration
curl -F 'file=@script.py' -F 'expires_in=24h' https://example.com

# Shorten a URL
curl -F 'file=@-' https://example.com <<< 'https://example.com/very/long/url'

The response contains the paste URL, e.g. https://example.com/aBcDeFgHiJ.

Accessing pastes

Endpoint	Description
GET /{id}	Rendered paste with syntax highlighting
GET /{id}.{ext}	Rendered paste with a language hint (e.g. /{id}.go)
GET /{id}/raw	Raw plain-text content
GET /{id}/preview.png	1200×630 PNG preview image

Configuration

All configuration is done through environment variables (or a .env file).

Variable	Default	Description
DATABASE_URL	sqlite://rustbin.db	SQLite connection string
HOST	0.0.0.0	Bind address
PORT	3000	Bind port
MAX_PASTE_SIZE	2MB	Maximum upload size (supports KB, MB, GB)
CLASSIFIER_MAX_BYTES	64KB	Maximum content size for Enry-based language detection when no filename extension is present
HIGHLIGHT_MAX_BYTES	256KB	Maximum content size for syntax-highlighted HTML rendering before falling back to plain text with line links
RENDER_CACHE_CAPACITY	128	Number of rendered HTML entries to cache
CLEANUP_INTERVAL	3600	Seconds between expired-paste cleanup runs
DB_MIN_CONNECTIONS	1	SQLite connection pool minimum
DB_MAX_CONNECTIONS	5	SQLite connection pool maximum
RUST_LOG	rustbin=info	Log level filter (uses tracing-subscriber)