gas85/ownpastebin repository overview

⁠Pastebin

Donations:

A minimal, RAM-friendly paste service with support for raw uploads, TTL, burn-after-read, optional encryption, and pluggable storage backends.

⁠Demo

https://sitnikov.eu/pastebin/⁠

⁠Donation

Buy me a 🍺⁠

⁠✨ Features

• ⚡ Fast and lightweight

• 🔌 Pluggable storage:

  • Valkey / Redis (optional, in-memory)
  • PostgreSQL (optional, persistent)
  • SQLite (default)

• 🔥 Burn-after-read pastes

• ⏳ TTL (expiration support)

• 🔐 Optional server-side encryption with AES-GCM

• 🔐 Optional end-to-end encryption with AES-GCM

• 📦 Binary-safe uploads/downloads

• 🧠 Designed to be memory efficient

• 🌐 i18n support - different languages as json files

• 🎨 Theme support - set predefined Theme or use custom CSS to override

• 🍪 Cookie and Privacy Notice support - set your own links to cookie and privacy policy

• 🔗 Custom links support - set your own personal link with icon to any service

⁠⚙️ Configuration

All configuration is done via environment variables.

⁠🗄️ Storage Backends (Priority Order)

The application automatically selects the first available backend, but it is recommended to configure only 1 of them, or use defaults:

1. Valkey⁠ / Redis⁠ - PASTEBIN_REDIS_URL
2. Postgres⁠ - PASTEBIN_POSTGRES_URL
3. SQLite⁠ default if none above was set - PASTEBIN_SQLITE_PATH

⁠Variables

• PASTEBIN_REDIS_URL - Valkey/Redis connection string. No default - if not set, Valkey/Redis is disabled. Example:

  redis://valkey:6379/0
  

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  redis://redis:6379/0
  

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• PASTEBIN_POSTGRES_URL - PostgreSQL connection string. Used if Valkey/Redis is not configured. No default - if not set, PostgreSQL is disabled. Example:

  postgresql://user:pass@postgres:5432/pastebin
  

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• PASTEBIN_SQLITE_PATH - Path to SQLite database file. Default:

  /app/data/pastes.db
  

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• PASTEBIN_SQLITE_PAGE_SIZE - You can set SQLite Page size for a new table. Valid values are power of 2 from 512 to 65536. You can calculate it roughly on following basis:

  • 4096 is default - good for typical text pastes (< 100 KB).
  • 8192 or 16384 - better when pastes are regularly several MB, because each paste fits in fewer pages, reducing I/O and B-tree depth.

⁠🌐 Application Settings

• PASTEBIN_BASE_URL- Public base URL of your service. Default:

  http://localhost:8080
  

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  Following prefixes are supported:

  • No prefix PASTEBIN_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080 or PASTEBIN_BASE_URL=https://pastebin.myserver.com
  • Behind nginx at /pastebin - PASTEBIN_BASE_URL=https://myserver.com/pastebin
  • Behind nginx at /tools/paste - PASTEBIN_BASE_URL=https://myserver.com/tools/paste

• PASTEBIN_HOST - Bind address. Default: 0.0.0.0

• PASTEBIN_PORT - Port to listen to. Default: 8080

• PASTEBIN_TLS_KEY - Provide path to TLS Key to enable TLS Support directly on a service.

• PASTEBIN_TLS_CERT - Provide path to TLS Certificate to enable TLS Support directly on a service.

• PASTEBIN_TRUSTED_PROXY - Provide IP or CIDR of trusted proxies, so that X-Forwarded-For header will be used.

• PASTEBIN_LOG_LEVEL - Set log level. Default: Info.

• PASTEBIN_LOG_FORMAT - Set it to json, to have JSON logs output. Default: text.

• PASTEBIN_LOG_EXCLUDE - Set it to any regex that you needs to exclude from the logs, e.g. \/health|127.0.0.1 will exclude calls to /health endpoint, and or from IP 127.0.0.1. Default is not set, so that everything shown.

• PASTEBIN_FILE_LOG - Set log file location to log all App output. Default is not set, it is logged to stdout. If you need log file, simply provide a path writable by user "nobody". Recommended is /app/data/pastebin.log.

⁠⏳ TTL Settings

• PASTEBIN_DEFAULT_BURN - If enabled all pastes without burn=false will be saved to be viewed only once. You can still set burn=false via UI or CLI. Default: false.
• PASTEBIN_DEFAULT_TTL - Default expiration if none provided. Default: 0 (no expiration)
• PASTEBIN_MAX_TTL - Maximum allowed TTL. It is recommended to set this value for internet accessible sites. It is recommended to set this value if protected pastes are enabled. If set:
  • caps user-provided TTL
  • used when no TTL is provided

Supported Formats:

⁠📏 Limits

• PASTEBIN_MAX_PARALLEL_UPLOADS - Max amount of parallel POST requests. Default 20. Be aware that each requests needs memory. E.g. if PASTEBIN_MAX_PASTE_SIZE=5MB and PASTEBIN_MAX_PARALLEL_UPLOADS=20, that needs around 5*20*2,3 (roughly amount of modifications) = 230 Mb of RAM and with PASTEBIN_MAX_PASTE_SIZE=30MB around 1,5 GB of RAM.
• PASTEBIN_MAX_PASTE_SIZE - Max upload size. Default: 5MB

Supported Formats:

⁠🔐 Security

• PASTEBIN_SERVER_SIDE_ENCRYPTION_ENABLED- Enable server side encryption before to store the paste. Recommended on shared environments. Default false - disabled.
• PASTEBIN_SERVER_SIDE_ENCRYPTION_KEY- 32-byte base64 key (required if encryption enabled). You can generate Key with openssl, or directly with this container.

openssl rand -base64 32

Or:

docker run -e GENERATE_KEY=true gas85/ownpastebin:latest

⚠️ If you ever rotate the key or loose it, old pastes become permanently unreadable. There is no restore for it. ⚠️

⁠🕒 Misc

• PASTEBIN_SLUG_LEN - Uniq URL Length. Default to 20. It is not recommended to go below this value to avoid possible collision (handled by storage) and Link guessing attack.
• PASTEBIN_PROTECTED_PASTE_ENABLED - enable support for protected pastes. They can be created with a flag protected=true and can be only removed by expiration time or burn option. It is recommended to set PASTEBIN_MAX_TTL this feature is enabled, otherwise it could result in pastes that live indefinitely. They can only be removed via direct database access. Default to false.
• PASTEBIN_EXPIRY_TIMES - You can set your own expiration timers list as <Name>:<Value in seconds>,. Where <Name> could be Never for never expired pastes, or X <label>, where X expiration time shown in UI and <label> could be one of Min/Hour/Day/Week/Month/Year. E.g. "Never:0,5 Min:300,1 Hour:3600,1 Day:86400,1 Week:604800" will produce following dropdown:
  • Never
  • 5 Min
  • 1 Hour
  • 1 Day
  • 1 Week
• PASTEBIN_DATE_FORMAT - Text logs timestamp format. Disabled when logs format is set to json. Default: %Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S
• TZ - Timezone. Default Europe/Zurich
• PASTEBIN_THEME - Set custom theme as per W3.CSS Color Themes⁠, add e.g. blue, teal, green, etc. Default theme used when not set.
• PASTEBIN_THEME_CUSTOM_CSS - Overrides Theme with your own CSS. Please use format as in a W3.CSS Color Themes⁠. This will overrule PASTEBIN_THEME, you should't use both. Default theme used when non of them set. You can set it to e.g. w3-theme-l5 {color:#000 !important; background-color:#fff !important}.w3-theme-l3 {color:#000 !important; background-color:#f8f9fa !important}....
• PASTEBIN_COOKIE_URL - Set custom Cookie URL. This Application itself will not set any cookies, but if you are using this application as sub path to your domain or behind e.g. OAUTH2 Proxy⁠ they could set cookies and you will need to reference your cookie policy here. Default is not set.
• PASTEBIN_PRIVACY_URL - Set custom Privacy Policy URL if you need. Default is not set.
• PASTEBIN_CUSTOM_ICON - Set custom icon to your PASTEBIN_CUSTOM_URL if needed. You can set something from Font Awesome⁠ free collection, e.g. fa-solid fa-question to set a ❔. Default: fa-solid fa-question if PASTEBIN_CUSTOM_URL was set.
• PASTEBIN_CUSTOM_URL - Set custom URL if needed, works together with PASTEBIN_CUSTOM_ICON. Default is not set.

⁠🧠 Storage Behavior

You can still set custom SQLite DB location via PASTEBIN_SQLITE_PATH.

⁠Notes

• Valkey, or Redis = fastest, but memory-based storage. Fits good for Local network usage.
• PostgreSQL = persistent, scalable. Fits good for Local network and Internet usage, distributed, high performance.
• SQLite = zero-config, minimal RAM usage. Default, simple fast storage fits to all.

⁠🚀 Run

⁠Docker

docker run -d \
  --name pastebin \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -v ./data:/app/data \
  -e PASTEBIN_MAX_TTL=360d \
  -e PASTEBIN_BASE_URL=http://localhost:8080 \
  --restart always \
  gas85/ownpastebin:latest

⁠Docker Compose

Please refer to docker-compose.yml⁠ as example.

docker compose up -d

⁠Kubernetes / Openshift

Please refer to k8s.yml⁠ as example.

kubectl apply -f k8s.yml

⁠Build

You can build it from sources with following commands:

go mod download
CGO_ENABLED=1 GOOS=linux go build -ldflags="-s -w" -o pastebin .

Or use docker

docker build -t ownpastebin:latest .

You can perform local test automation with following command:

CGO_ENABLED=1 go test ./... -v

⁠📦 Pastebin API

You can find API documentation under /swagger-ui e.g. https://sitnikov.eu/pastebin/swagger-ui⁠

⁠🚀 Create Paste - POST /

Create a new paste.

⁠Supported Content Types

• application/json
• application/x-www-form-urlencoded
• multipart/form-data
• raw body (--data-binary)

⁠Query Parameters

⁠Examples

⁠Raw upload

curl "http://localhost:8080" --data-binary "@file.txt"

E.g. you can push all docker logs to the pastebin:

# As per https://wiki.sitnikov.eu/doku.php?id=howto:docker#push_all_docker_logs_to_the_pastebin
docker ps --format '{{.Names}}' | xargs -I {} sh -c 'docker logs --timestamps -tail 500 {} 2>&1 | sed "s/^/[{}] /"' | curl http://localhost:8080 --data-binary @-

⁠Burn after read + TTL

curl "http://localhost:8080?burn=true&ttl=60" --data-binary "@file.txt"

⁠Burn after read + TTL + protect paste from deletion

curl "http://localhost:8080?burn=true&ttl=60&protected=true" --data-binary "@file.txt"

⁠Response

As Response you will get JSON with URL to the webUI for this paste and paste ID that you can use e.g. to call /raw or /download endpoint.

{
  "url": "http://localhost:8080/abc123",
  "id": "abc123",
  "lang": "text"
}

⁠📖 View Paste - GET /{paste_id}

Returns HTML view.

curl http://localhost:8080/abc123

⁠📄 View Raw Paste - GET /raw/{paste_id}

Returns plain text or binary-safe response.

curl http://localhost:8080/raw/abc123

⁠⬇️ Download Paste - GET /download/{paste_id}

Forces file download.

curl http://localhost:8080/download/abc123

⁠❌ Delete Paste - DELETE /{paste_id}

curl -X DELETE http://localhost:8080/abc123

⁠🔥 Burn After Read

If burn=true:

• First request → returns content
• Second request → 404 Not Found

⁠Protected paste

if protected=true:

• DELETE Method is disabled for this paste and will return 403 Forbidden with paste is protected message
• Burn and expiration time works as before and will remove protected pastes too

⁠⚠️ Limits & Errors

⁠Paste too large

413 Paste too large
403 Paste is protected

⁠🧾 Logging

Example:

2026-03-25 09:55:57 - INFO - pastebin - access method=GET path=/ status=200 duration=1.077ms bytes=15044 ip=192.168.65.1:57801

{"level":"INFO","msg":{"bytes":14562,"duration":"710µs","ip":"192.168.65.1:59435","message":"access","method":"GET","path":"/","status":200},"time":"2026-04-27T20:13:34.986291506+02:00"}

⁠Translate

1. Copy static/en.json to any new language file you need.
2. Translate it.
3. In static/custom.js update const flags with new language.
4. In templates/index.html and templates/index_full.html add new language in i18n-dropdown div.

⁠🛠️ Notes

• Works with curl, browsers, API clients
• Binary-safe storage
• No in-memory caching → RAM efficient
• SQLite uses WAL mode for better concurrency
• Expired pastes are cleaned on access (lazy cleanup) and periodically during the day

⁠📌 Summary

This pastebin is designed to be:

• ⚡ Fast
• 🧠 Memory-efficient
• 🔌 Flexible (multi-backend)
• 🔐 Secure (optional encryption)

Inspired by Pastebin⁠.