go.macpanthor.com — URL Shortener & QR Code Generator

A self-hosted URL shortener and QR code generator for the go.macpanthor.com subdomain.

Built with PHP 8+ and MySQL, served behind Apache, with a dark theme matching macpanthor.com. No third-party or ad-supported services — everything runs on your own host.

Live: https://go.macpanthor.com Repository: macpanthor/go-macpanthor

Features

• Short links — auto-generated 6-character alphanumeric codes or custom aliases (uniqueness-checked against the database)
• Clean redirects — https://go.macpanthor.com/{code} with no visible query string
• Styled 404 page for unknown codes
• QR codes — PNG, cyan-on-dark, 300 px, with disk caching
• Click tracking — atomic click counter per link
• Secure by default — PDO prepared statements, strict input validation, and reserved-alias protection

Tech stack

Layer	Technology
Language	PHP 8.0+
Database	MySQL 8+ (PDO, pdo_mysql)
Web server	Apache with mod_rewrite
QR library	endroid/qr-code (Composer) + phpqrcode fallback
Frontend	Vanilla HTML/CSS/JS (no frameworks, no CDNs)

Requirements

• PHP 8.0+ with the pdo_mysql extension
• MySQL 8+
• Apache with mod_rewrite enabled
• Composer (recommended) — or the phpqrcode fallback if Composer isn't available
• PHP gd extension (only required for the phpqrcode fallback)

Installation

1. Clone the repository

git clone https://github.com/macpanthor/go-macpanthor.git go-macpanthor
cd go-macpanthor

2. Create the database

mysql -u root -p < schema.sql

This creates the macpanthor_go database and the links table.

3. Configure the application

Edit config.php and set your credentials:

define('DB_HOST', 'localhost');
define('DB_NAME', 'macpanthor_go');
define('DB_USER', 'root');
define('DB_PASS', 'your-password');
define('BASE_URL', 'https://go.macpanthor.com'); // no trailing slash

4. Install the QR library

Option A — Composer (recommended):

composer install

Option B — no Composer on the host:

Copy the phpqrcode PHP files into lib/phpqrcode/ so that lib/phpqrcode/qrlib.php exists. See lib/phpqrcode/README.md for details. qr.php detects it automatically.

5. Deploy

Point the document root of go.macpanthor.com at this folder (or copy the files to it). Make sure qrcodes/ is writable by PHP so QR disk caching works.

Usage

Action	URL
Shorten a URL	https://go.macpanthor.com/
Open a short link	https://go.macpanthor.com/{code}
Download a QR code	https://go.macpanthor.com/qr.php?c={code}

API reference

Create a short link

POST /insert.php
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

Field	Required	Description
url	Yes	Long URL (http/https)
alias	No	Custom alias (A-Za-z0-9_-, ≤10)

Success response

{
  "success": true,
  "code": "aB3xY9",
  "short_url": "https://go.macpanthor.com/aB3xY9",
  "qr_url": "https://go.macpanthor.com/qr.php?c=aB3xY9"
}

Error response

{ "success": false, "error": "..." }

Status	Meaning
405	Non-POST request
409	Custom alias already taken
422	Invalid input
500	Server/database error

Project structure

go-macpanthor/
├── .htaccess               # mod_rewrite rules + branded 404
├── index.php               # Frontend (form, result, QR preview)
├── insert.php              # API: create a short link (POST)
├── r.php                   # Redirect handler (lookup + click counter)
├── qr.php                  # QR PNG generator
├── config.php              # Database credentials + app settings
├── schema.sql              # MySQL database schema
├── composer.json           # endroid/qr-code dependency
├── assets/
│   ├── logo.webp / logo.png   # <SA /> logo (webp + png fallback)
│   ├── favicon.ico            # Favicon (+ 16/32/180/192/512 px PNGs)
│   ├── site.webmanifest       # PWA manifest
│   ├── style.css              # Dark/cyan theme
│   └── script.js              # Form submit + copy-to-clipboard
├── lib/phpqrcode/
│   └── README.md           # Optional fallback library instructions
└── qrcodes/                # Cached QR PNGs (created automatically)

Database schema

Column	Type	Notes
id	INT UNSIGNED PK, AI
short_code	VARCHAR(10) UNIQUE
original_url	TEXT
clicks	INT UNSIGNED DEFAULT 0
created_at	TIMESTAMP DEFAULT now

Security

• All queries use PDO prepared statements.
• Short codes and aliases are validated against a strict whitelist regex.
• Reserved words (r, qr, insert, index, assets, …) can't be used as aliases, so app routes are never shadowed.
• Output is escaped (htmlspecialchars / json_encode) on redirect pages.
• The click counter uses an atomic UPDATE ... SET clicks = clicks + 1.

License

No license is currently specified. Add one before making the repository public.