Easy static redirects - Githubissues

Idea

With a simple context file (eg templates/redirect.yaml), have a mapping of names (foo) to redirect URLs (https://foo.com/hacksoc). This would be useful for having branded, memorable links for services like Discord invites, mailing list Google Form, etc.

Implementation

Here are two ways this could be implemented:

1.

A mapping foo to https://foo.com/hacksoc generates a file called foo, with the contents

<html>
    <head>
        <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;URL='https://foo.com/hacksoc'" /> 
    </head>
    <body>
        <p>You are being redirected to <a href="https://foo.com/hacksoc">https://foo.com/hacksoc</a></p>
    </body>
</html>

Correct operation depends on nginx serving extension-less files as text/html – if needed redirects could be served under hacksoc.org/redir/foo (for example), and then Content-type rules could be applied to the /redir/ path.

2. HTTP 302

A mapping foo to https://foo.com/hacksoc generates a nginx config block, with the contents

location /foo {
    return 302 https://foo.com/hacksoc;        
}

All of the nginx config blocks are written to redirect.conf, which is placed somewhere outside of the webroot.

The main nginx server block for www.hacksoc.org has include /path/to/redirect.conf; in an appropriate place
The webhook which is triggered when the repository is pushed to includes a call to systemctl reload nginx or nginx -s reload
The user which runs the webhook is allowed to run the above commands (eg via sudoers)

HackSoc / hacksoc.org

Easy static redirects #121

Idea

Implementation

1.

2. HTTP 302