bytebin is a fast & lightweight content storage web service.

You can think of bytebin a bit like a pastebin, except that it accepts any kind of data (not just plain text!).
Accordingly, the name 'bytebin' is a portmanteau of "byte" (binary) and "pastebin".

bytebin is:

• fast & (somewhat) lightweight - the focus is on the speed at which HTTP requests can be handled.
  • relatively low CPU usage
  • relatively high memory usage (content is cached in memory by default, but this can be disabled)
• standalone - it's just a simple Java app that listens for HTTP requests on a given port.
• efficient - utilises compression to reduce disk usage and network load.
• flexible - supports any content type or encoding. (and CORS too!)
• easy to use - simple HTTP API and a minimal HTML frontend.

Running bytebin

The easiest way to spin up a bytebin instance is using Docker. Images are automatically created and published to GitHub for each commit/release.

Minimal Docker Compose example:

services:
  bytebin:
    image: ghcr.io/lucko/bytebin
    ports:
      - 3000:8080
    volumes:
      - data:/opt/bytebin/content
      - db:/opt/bytebin/db
    environment:
      # You can configure bytebin using
      # environment variables.
      BYTEBIN_MISC_KEYLENGTH: 15
      BYTEBIN_CONTENT_MAXSIZE: 5

volumes:
  data: {}
  db: {}

$ docker compose up

You should then (hopefully!) be able to access the application at http://localhost:3000/.

API

Read

• Just send an HTTP GET request to /{key} (e.g. /aabbcc).
  • The content will be returned as-is in the response body.
  • If the content was posted using an encoding other than gzip, the requester must also "accept" it.
  • For gzip, bytebin will automatically uncompress if the client doesn't support compression.

Write

• Send a POST request to /post with the content in the request body.
  • You should also specify Content-Type and User-Agent headers, but this is not required.
• Ideally, content should be compressed with GZIP or another mechanism before being uploaded.
  • Include the Content-Encoding: <type> header if this is the case.
  • bytebin will compress server-side using gzip if no encoding is specified - but it is better (for performance reasons) if the client does this instead.
• A unique key that identifies the content will be returned. You can find it:
  • In the response Location header.
  • In the response body, encoded as JSON - {"key": "aabbcc"}.

License

MIT, have fun!