Quickstart Guide #

You can install the MicroBin executable on its own from Cargo, from AUR, from the GitHub releases page and by building it yourself. You can also deploy MicroBin on Docker, Unraid OS and services like Render.

If you obtain the excecutable on its own, you may need to configure the service yourself.

You can run the service behind a reverse proxy like NGINX or Caddy.

Before installing MicroBin, look at the configuration options in the Documentation, or just use the recommended configuration.

From Cargo #

Install from Cargo:

cargo install microbin

Remember, MicroBin will create your database and file storage wherever you execute it. I recommend that you create a folder for it first and execute it there:

mkdir ~/microbin/

cd ~/microbin/

microbin --highlightsyntax --editable

From AUR #

Install microbin package from AUR on any Arch-based Linux distribution and start/enable microbin systemd service. Systemd will start server on 127.0.0.1:8080 with almost all features enabled, but this can be changed in /etc/microbin.conf.

Building MicroBin #

Simply clone the repository, build it with cargo build --release and run the microbin executable in the created target/release/ directory. It will start listening on 0.0.0.0:8080. You can change the port or bind address with CL arguments -p (--port) or -b (--bind) respectively . For other arguments see the Documentation.

git clone https://github.com/szabodanika/microbin.git
cd microbin
cargo build --release
./target/release/microbin -p 80

Docker #

The official automated docker images are available on Docker Hub at danielszabo99/microbin. Alternatively you can also build an image yourself, following the steps below:

git clone https://github.com/szabodanika/microbin.git
cd microbin
docker build -t microbin-docker .

Then, for docker compose you can repurpose the following example in your compose file:

services:
  paste:
    image: microbin-docker
    restart: always
    ports:
     - "80:8080"
    volumes:
     - ./microbin-data:/app/pasta_data

To pass command line arguments you must edit the Dockerfile and change the CMD line. In this example we add the syntax highlighting option and enable private pastas:

CMD ["microbin", "--highlightsyntax", "--private"]

You then need to rebuild the image and recreate your container.

Note: If you are getting the following error about domain name resolution:

warning: spurious network error (2 tries remaining): failed to resolve address for github.com: Temporary failure in name resolution; class=Net (12)
warning: spurious network error (1 tries remaining): failed to resolve address for github.com: Temporary failure in name resolution; class=Net (12)

You might need to run docker build with the --network option:

docker build --network host -t microbin-docker .

MicroBin as a service #

To install it as a service on your Linux machine, create a file called /etc/systemd/system/microbin.service, paste this into it with the [username] and [path to installation directory] replaced with the actual values. If you installed MicroBin from cargo, your executable will be in your cargo directory, e.g. /Users/daniel/.cargo/bin/microbin.

[Unit]
Description=MicroBin
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
User=[username]
RootDirectory=/
WorkingDirectory=[path to installation directory]
ExecStart=[path to installation directory]/target/release/microbin

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Here is my microbin.service for example, with some optional arguments:

[Unit]
Description=MicroBin
After=network.target

[Service]
Type=simple
Restart=always
User=ubuntu
RootDirectory=/

# This is the directory where I want to run microbin. It will store all the pastas here.
WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/server/microbin

# This is the location of my executable - I also have 2 optional features enabled
ExecStart=/home/ubuntu/server/microbin/target/release/microbin --editable --highlightsyntax

# I keep my installation in the home directory, so I need to add this
ProtectHome=off

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Then start the service with systemctl start microbin and enable it on boot with systemctl enable microbin. To update your MicroBin, simply update or clone the repository again, build it again, and then restart the service with systemctl restart microbin. An update will never affect your existing pastas, unless there is a breaking change in the data model (in which case MicroBin just won't be able to import your DB), which will always be mentioned explicitly.

NGINX configuration #

server {
	# I have HTTPS enabled using certbot - you can use HTTP of course if you want!
  listen 443 ssl; # managed by Certbot

	server_name	microbin.myserver.com;

	location / {
			# Make sure to change the port if you are not running MicroBin at 8080!
    	proxy_pass	        http://127.0.0.1:8080$request_uri;
	    proxy_set_header	Host $host;
	    proxy_set_header	X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
	    proxy_set_header    X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
	    proxy_set_header    X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
	}

	# Limit content size - I have 1GB because my MicroBin server is private, no one else will use it.
	client_max_body_size 1024M;

  ssl_certificate /etc/letsencrypt/live/microbin.myserver.com/fullchain.pem; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_certificate_key /etc/letsencrypt/live/microbin.myserver.com/privkey.pem; # managed by Certbot
  include /etc/letsencrypt/options-ssl-nginx.conf; # managed by Certbot
  ssl_dhparam /etc/letsencrypt/ssl-dhparams.pem; # managed by Certbot
}

Caddy configuration #

An example of running MicroBin behind the reverse proxy caddy on the path /paste (using systemd)

microbin.service

[Unit]
Description=Micobin Paste

[Service]
Type=simple
User=microbin
# Path to your binary
ExecStart=/home/microbin/microbin/target/release/microbin
# Set your desired working directory, eg where microbin places its data
WorkingDirectory=/home/pi/bin/micro

# bind to localhost, as its exposed via Caddy
Environment=MICROBIN_BIND=127.0.0.1
# bind to a unused port
Environment=MICROBIN_PORT=31333
# All your other config (change and add as needed)
Environment=MICROBIN_EDITABLE=true
Environment=MICROBIN_HIGHLIGHTSYNTAX=true
Environment=MICROBIN_THREADS=2
Environment=MICROBIN_FOOTER_TEXT="Bin the bytes"
# Set your **public** url. Eg the one you will later use to access microbin
# Ensure it either starts with http(s):// or with a /
Environment=MICROBIN_PUBLIC_PATH="http://100.127.233.32/paste"

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Caddyfile

example.com {
    # Your normal http root
    root * /var/www/html
    file_server
    
    # Route all requests to past
    handle_path /paste/* {
        reverse_proxy http://127.0.0.1:31333
    }
}