YOURLS URL Shortener

This is a repackaged open source software product wherein additional charges apply for cloudimg support services.

Overview

Eliminate hours of manual dependency installation, web server configuration and database setup. This image delivers YOURLS (Your Own URL Shortener) fully installed, configured and security hardened, so you have a working branded link shortener within minutes of launch. The current release available is YOURLS 1.10.

Why self-hosted YOURLS

Third-party link shorteners own your click data, limit custom domains on free tiers, and charge escalating fees as volume grows. Running YOURLS on your own AWS infrastructure gives you full ownership of every click analytics row, unlimited custom domains, no per-link fees, and complete REST API access, all on infrastructure you control. YOURLS is a well-established open source project with an active community and a rich plugin ecosystem; this image packages the current release into a production-ready deployment so you benefit from that ecosystem without the setup burden.

Application stack

YOURLS runs on PHP 8.3 with OPcache and all required extensions, served by Apache with a TLS-ready configuration, with MariaDB as the database. Short link routing is configured in the web server rather than left to rewrite rules a default configuration ignores, so links resolve correctly the moment you launch. Your data, the MariaDB database holding every short link and every click analytics row plus the YOURLS configuration and any plugins you add, lives on a dedicated data volume kept separate from the operating system disk.

Secure by default

On the first boot of your instance a one-shot service generates a fresh MariaDB password and a fresh YOURLS administrator password unique to that instance and writes them to a root-only file. No shared or default passwords ship in the image. The administrator password is stored only as a bcrypt hash, and the database listens only on the loopback interface.

Ready to use

The application follows whatever address you browse it on, so it works on the instance address immediately and keeps working after you attach your own domain with no configuration edit. Browse to the instance address and sign in to shorten links, choose custom keywords, and review click statistics, traffic sources and country breakdowns. A full REST API and a bookmarklet are included.

Use cases

• Marketing teams managing campaign links at scale: generate tracked short links per campaign, review country-level click breakdowns, and allocate budget based on engagement data you own.
• SaaS companies and publishers needing branded domains: run a branded shortener on your own domain so every shared link reinforces your brand while you retain full analytics.
• Developers integrating programmatic link creation: use the REST API to create, manage and retrieve click stats for short links from your applications, CI/CD pipelines or automation workflows.

Getting started

Launch the AMI, browse to your instance address, retrieve your unique credentials from the root-only file (/root/yourls-credentials.txt), and sign in. For a guided walkthrough or help with custom domain and TLS setup, contact cloudimg support.

cloudimg support

24/7 technical support by email and live chat. Our engineers help with YOURLS deployment and configuration, custom domain and TLS setup, plugin and API configuration, version upgrades, performance tuning, and MariaDB database administration. Critical issues receive a one-hour average response time.

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