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Pastebin

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About

A fast, full-stack Go web application for creating and sharing text snippets anonymously. Drop-in replacement for pastebin.com, microbin, and lenpaste — existing scripts, CLIs, and integrations work without modification.

Official Site

https://pste.us — the official hosted instance. The CLI client uses it as the default server; use --server <url> to target your own instance.

Features

  • Anonymous paste creation via web form, JSON API, raw body, or multipart file upload
  • Server-side syntax highlighting via Chroma (no client-side JS required)
  • Language auto-detection from file extension on upload
  • Expiry options: 1h, 1d, 1w, 1m, 3m, 6m, 1y, 18m, 2y, never, or custom seconds
  • Burn after N reads — paste deleted once view count reaches threshold
  • Public and unlisted visibility
  • Link pastes — auto-detected when content is exactly one http:///https:// URL and nothing else; visiting the paste 302-redirects to the target (/{id}/raw returns the target URL as text instead)
  • Owner token — cryptographically random tok_... value returned once at creation (as owner_token), stored only as a SHA-256 hash, required to delete a paste
  • Raw paste view at /raw/{id} and /{id}/raw
  • Download at /dl/{id}
  • Embedded view at /emb/{id} (iframe-embeddable)
  • QR code at /qr/{id}
  • View count tracking
  • Automatic background cleanup of expired and burned pastes
  • Full web frontend (server-side Go templates, dark/light/auto theme, PWA, mobile-first)
  • Server pages: /server/about, /server/help, /server/healthz, /server/privacy, /server/terms
  • CLI client (pastebin-cli)
  • OpenAPI/Swagger docs at /api/v1/server/swagger
  • GraphQL at /api/v1/server/graphql (GraphiQL UI at /server/docs/graphql, read-only queries)
  • Full route compatibility with pastebin.com, microbin, lenpaste, stikked, hastebin/haste-server, dpaste, the curl-upload family (sprunge/0x0/ix.io), and termbin/fiche (raw TCP, opt-in)
  • Built-in scheduler for expiry cleanup, backups, security-database updates, and self-update checks (no external cron)
  • Backup and restore with optional AES-256-GCM encryption (Argon2id key derivation)
  • Self-update with SHA-256 checksum verification (stable/beta/daily channels)
  • Prometheus metrics endpoint (/metrics, internal-only)
  • GeoIP country allow/deny (advisory) with auto-downloaded, scheduler-updated databases
  • Rate limiting per read/write/health class
  • Tor hidden-service support (auto-enabled when the tor binary is present)
  • Internationalization: English, Spanish, Chinese, French, Arabic (RTL), German, Japanese
  • Operator email notifications with SMTP auto-detection (no email attempted without working SMTP)
  • Cookie-consent banner and privacy/terms pages
  • Cross-platform service management (systemd, OpenRC, SysVinit, runit, launchd, rc.d, Windows Service)
  • Single self-contained static binary with embedded SQLite

Production

Docker (Recommended)

docker run -d \
  --name pastebin \
  -p 172.17.0.1:64580:80 \
  -v ./volumes/config:/config:z \
  -v ./volumes/data:/data:z \
  ghcr.io/apimgr/pastebin:latest

Docker Compose

curl -q -LSsf -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/apimgr/pastebin/main/docker/docker-compose.yml
docker compose up -d

Binary

# Download latest release
curl -q -LSsf -O https://github.com/apimgr/pastebin/releases/latest/download/pastebin-linux-amd64

# Make executable and run
chmod +x pastebin-linux-amd64
./pastebin-linux-amd64

Client

A companion client, pastebin-cli, is available for interacting with the server API.

Install

# Download latest release
curl -q -LSsf -O https://github.com/apimgr/pastebin/releases/latest/download/pastebin-cli-linux-amd64
chmod +x pastebin-cli-linux-amd64
sudo mv pastebin-cli-linux-amd64 /usr/local/bin/pastebin-cli

Configure

# Target a custom server (default: https://pste.us)
pastebin-cli --server https://your-server.example.com create myfile.txt

Usage

# Create a paste from stdin
echo "Hello, World!" | pastebin-cli create

# Create from file
pastebin-cli create myfile.go --lang go --expiry 1d

# Fetch paste content
pastebin-cli get abc12345

# Delete paste
pastebin-cli delete abc12345 <owner-token>

# List recent pastes
pastebin-cli list --limit 20

Configuration

The server reads /etc/apimgr/pastebin/server.yml on Linux (created automatically on first run). All settings can be overridden via CLI flags.

Server (pastebin) Environment Variables

Variable Default Description
CONFIG_DIR Platform default Configuration directory path
DATA_DIR Platform default Data directory path
LOG_DIR Platform default Log directory path (LOGS_DIR accepted as an alias)
CACHE_DIR Platform default Cache directory path
BACKUP_DIR Platform default Backup directory path
PID_FILE Platform default PID file path
PORT Random 64xxx Listen port (80 in container)
ADDRESS 0.0.0.0 Listen address
BASE_URL Auto-detected Public base URL for link generation
DB_PATH {data_dir}/db/server.db SQLite database path
SITE_TITLE Pastebin Site title shown in the web UI
THEME dark UI theme: dark, light, or auto
MAX_SIZE 10mb Maximum paste size; accepts kb/mb/gb/tb suffixes, a bare number (defaults to MB), or 0/negative for unlimited
MAX_SIZE_BYTES unset Deprecated alias for MAX_SIZE in raw bytes
NO_COLOR unset Set to any value to disable ANSI color output
_DAEMON_CHILD unset Internal: set by --daemon to mark the child process

Platform default paths:

Platform Config Data Logs
Linux (root/service) /etc/apimgr/pastebin/ /var/lib/apimgr/pastebin/ /var/log/apimgr/pastebin/
Linux (user) ~/.config/apimgr/pastebin/ ~/.local/share/apimgr/pastebin/ ~/.local/log/apimgr/pastebin/
Container /config/pastebin/ /data/pastebin/ /data/log/pastebin/
macOS (user) ~/Library/Application Support/apimgr/pastebin/ same ~/Library/Logs/apimgr/pastebin/
Windows (user) %AppData%\apimgr\pastebin\ %LocalAppData%\apimgr\pastebin\ %LocalAppData%\apimgr\pastebin\logs\

Client (pastebin-cli) Environment Variables

Variable Default Description
PASTEBIN_SERVER_PRIMARY https://pste.us (embedded) Server base URL override for self-hosted instances
PASTEBIN_TOKEN unset Operator/owner API token (overridden by --token; falls back to cli.yml auth.token)
CLI_CONFIG Platform default Path to the client cli.yml configuration file
NO_COLOR unset Set to any value to disable ANSI color output

API

API documentation available at https://pste.us/api/v1/server/swagger when running.

Endpoint Description
GET https://pste.us/server/healthz Health check
POST https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes Create a paste
GET https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes/{id} Get a paste
DELETE https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes/{id} Delete a paste
GET https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes List recent pastes

Examples

# Create a paste
curl -q -LSsf -X POST https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{"content":"Hello","language":"text","expires_in":"1d"}'

# Get a paste
curl -q -LSsf https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes/{id}

# Delete a paste
curl -q -LSsf -X DELETE https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes/{id} \
  -H 'Authorization: Bearer <owner-token>'

# List recent pastes
curl -q -LSsf https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes

# Pipe to paste (raw body)
curl -q -LSsf -X POST https://pste.us/api/v1/pastes \
  --data-binary @file.txt -H 'Content-Type: text/plain'

Other

Troubleshooting

  • Check logs: docker logs pastebin-app
  • Health check: curl -q -LSsf https://pste.us/server/healthz

Development

Development instructions are for contributors only.

Prerequisites

  • Go (latest stable)
  • Docker (for containerized builds)

Build

Requires Docker (no local Go toolchain needed):

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/apimgr/pastebin
cd pastebin

# Full build (all 8 platforms, outputs to binaries/)
make build

# Current platform only
make local

# Quick development build
make dev

# Run unit tests
make test

Usage (local build)

# Start server (binds all interfaces on a random port in 64000-64999, saved to server.yml on first run)
./pastebin

# Custom address and port
./pastebin --address 127.0.0.1 --port 8080

# Show version
./pastebin --version

# Show status
./pastebin --status

Disclaimer

This software is provided "as is" without warranty of any kind. Use at your own risk.

  • No Warranty: The authors are not responsible for any damages, data loss, or issues arising from use of this software
  • Not Professional Advice: This software does not constitute legal, financial, medical, or other professional advice
  • Third-Party Services: If this software connects to external APIs or services, their terms of service apply separately
  • Security: While we strive to follow security best practices, no software is guaranteed to be free of vulnerabilities
  • Production Use: Evaluate thoroughly before deploying in production environments

By using this software, you acknowledge that you have read and understood this disclaimer.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.md

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github.com/apimgr/pastebin

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