bfancy/pcopy repository overview

⁠pcopy - a tool to copy/paste across machines

official pcopy⁠ executable (v0.6.*) with some custom style changes, compiled with go 1.24, serving via docker image (FROM debian:stable-slim).

run the container with: docker run --rm -it bfancy/pcopy. this will print the usage text.

⁠usage as local clipboard command

to really use it as a clipboard tool set it up like this:

docker pull bfancy/pcopy
alias pcopy="docker run --rm -v ~/.cache/pcopy:/var/cache/pcopy -v ~/.config/pcopy:/etc/pcopy -p 2586:2586/tcp -it bfancy/pcopy"
alias pcp="pcopy copy"
alias ppaste="pcopy paste"

for further instructions see here: docker usage⁠.

⁠server usage

to deploy the container, you will need at least one directory containing the clipboards (./cache). here is my compose.yaml file for deployment with docker:

$ cat compose.yaml 

services:
  pcopy:
    image: bfancy/pcopy:latest
    restart: unless-stopped
    ports:
      - "127.0.0.1:2586:2586"
    volumes:
      - "./cache:/var/cache/pcopy"
      - "./config:/etc/pcopy"
    command: ["serve"]

the second directory (./config) contains the server.conf file. here is mine:

$ cat ~/.config/pcopy/server.conf 

ServerAddr http://test.server.example:80
ListenAddr :2586/http
WebUI true

⁠server behind reverse-proxy

to use the above configured pcopy server behind a reverse-proxy server like nginx⁠ use a site config like this:

$ cat /etc/nginx/sites-enabled/pcopy-test

upstream pcopy_upstream {
  server 127.0.0.1:2586;
}

server {
  listen 80;
  server_name test.server.example;
  access_log off;
  log_not_found off;

  location / {
    proxy_pass         http://pcopy_upstream;
    proxy_http_version 1.1;
    proxy_set_header   Host $http_host;
    proxy_connect_timeout   1m;
    proxy_send_timeout      1m;
    proxy_read_timeout      1m;
  }
}

BEWARE: everyone can join your pcopy instance now. better write parameter Key XXXXXXXX (created via pcopy keygen) to your server.conf.

another best practice is to deploy a pcopy instance only via https with a valid certificate for the domain!