🚀 SnapURL - URL Shortener Microservice Project

SnapURL is a scalable, modular, and containerized microservice-based URL shortening system similar to Bit.ly or TinyURL. It provides a simple and efficient way to shorten long URLs and redirect to the original link using FastAPI and Docker.

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✨ Features

• 🔗 Shorten Long URLs using a base62 algorithm
• ↪️ Redirection Service for resolving shortened URLs
• 🗃️ Persistent Storage via Redis
• 🧱 Microservice Architecture with Docker Compose
• 🌐 API Gateway for unified access
• 💡 Health Check Endpoints for all services
• ⚙️ Pluggable Slug Strategy (Base62, Random, Hash, etc.)

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🗂️ Project Structure

SnapURL/
├── api-gateway/ # API Gateway that forwards requests to services
│ └── main.py
│
├── shortener/ # Microservice to generate short codes
│ ├── main.py
│ ├── service/
│ │ └── shortner_service.py
│ └── strategies/
│ ├── base.py
│ └── base62.py
│
├── redirector/ # Microservice to redirect shortened codes
│ └── main.py
│
├── url-storage/ # Microservice to interact with Redis for storing links
│ └── main.py
│
├── docker-compose.yml # Docker setup for all services
└── README.md # Project documentation

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🛠️ Technologies Used

• Python 3.11
• FastAPI
• Redis
• Docker + Docker Compose
• HTTPX for service communication

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🌐 Microservice Communication

All microservices are isolated in their own containers and communicate via Docker's internal DNS.

🔄 Flow of Data

1. User hits /shorten?url=<long-url> via API Gateway

2. API Gateway forwards it to shortener service

3. shortener generates a slug and calls url-storage to persist the mapping

4. The shortened code is returned to the user

5. When user visits /R3v1ON, API Gateway routes it to redirector

6. redirector fetches the original URL from url-storage and redirects

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🖼️ High-Level Design

                             +----------------+
                             |     Client     |
                             +--------+-------+
                                      |
                                      ▼
                         +------------+------------+
                         |      API Gateway        |
                         +------------+------------+
                                      |
        +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
        |                                                           |
        ▼                                                           ▼
+-------------------+                                  +----------------------+
|   Shortener Svc   | ----> Generates slug             |   Redirector Svc     |
+-------------------+                                  +----------------------+
        |                                                           |
        | Store slug:url in Redis                                   |
        ▼                                                           ▼
+--------------------------+                           +--------------------------+
|      URL Storage Svc     | <-- GET/POST --> Redis    |      URL Storage Svc     |
+--------------------------+                           +--------------------------+

--- 📦 Running the Project

Prerequisites

• Docker
• Docker Compose

Run All Services

docker compose up --build

Then open:

API Gateway: http://localhost:8001

🔌 Example Usage 🔸 Shorten a URL

curl -X POST "http://localhost:8001/shorten?url=https://github.com"

🔹 Redirect

curl -I http://localhost:8001/{short_code_of_above_link}

❤️ Credits Developed by Santosh Varma Addala

📜 License This project is licensed under the MIT License.