ass is a self-hosted ShareX upload server written in Node.js. I initially started this project purely out of spite.

ass aims to be as unopinionated as possible. It allows nearly endless choice for users & hosts alike: Users can configure their upload settings directly from the ShareX interface (including embeds, webhooks, & more), while hosts are free to pick their preferred storage & data management methods.

By default, ass comes with a resource viewing page, which includes metadata about the resource as well as a download button & inline viewers for images, videos, & audio. It does not have a user dashboard or registration system: this is intentional! Developers are free to create their own frontends using the languages & tools they are most comfortable with. Writing & using these frontends is fully documented below, in the wiki, & in the source code.

Developers ❤

ass was designed with developers in mind. If you are a developer & want something changed to better suit you, let me know & we'll see what we can do!

Code quality

CodeQL	DeepSource

Features

For users

• Upload images, gifs, videos, audio, & files
• Token-based authentication
• Download & delete resources
• Fully customizable Discord embeds
• Built-in web viewer with video & audio player
• Embed images, gifs, & videos directly in Discord
• Personal upload log using customizable Discord Webhooks
• macOS/Linux support with alternative clients such as Flameshot (script for ass) & MagicCap
• Multiple URL styles
  • ZWS
  • Mixed-case alphanumeric
  • Gfycat
  • Original

For hosts & developers

• Usage metrics
• Thumbnail support
• Mimetype blocking
• Themeable viewer page
• Basic multi-user support
• Configurable global upload size limit (per-user coming soon)
• Custom pluggable frontends using Git Submodules
• Run locally or in a Docker container
• Multiple file storage methods
  • Local file system
  • Amazon S3, including DigitalOcean Spaces
  • Skynet (free decentralized storage on the Sia blockchain)
• Multiple data storage methods using data engines
  • File
    • JSON (default, papito)
    • YAML (soon)
  • Database
    • PostgreSQL (ass-psql)
    • MongoDB (ass-mongoose)
    • MySQL (soon)

Access types

Type	What is it?
Zero-width spaces	When pasted elsewhere, the URL appears to be just your domain name. Some browsers or sites may not recognize these URLs (Discord does support these)
Mixed-case alphanumeric	The "safe" mode. URL's are browser safe as the character set is just letters & numbers.
Gfycat	Gfycat-style ID's (for example: https://example.com/unsung-discrete-grub). Thanks to Gfycat for the wordlists
Original	The "basic" mode. URL matches the same filename as when the file was uploaded. This may be prone to conflicts with files of the same name.

Installation

ass supports two installation methods: Docker (recommended) & local (manual).

Docker

Expand for Docker/Docker Compose installation steps

docker-compose is the recommended way to install ass. These steps assume you are already family with Docker, so if you're not, please read the docs. It also assumes that you have a working Docker installation with docker-compose installed.

If your local installation of Docker Compose complains about a missing docker-compose file, this is your problem, not mine. Update Compose to the latest version to remove that warning. I wrote the Compose file using the latest Compose specification, so any issues will be caused by an outdated version of Compose.

Install using docker-compose

1. Clone the ass repo using git clone https://github.com/tycrek/ass.git && cd ass/
2. Run the command that corresponds to your OS:
   • Linux: ./install/docker-linux.sh (uses #!/bin/bash)
   • Windows: install/docker-windows.bat (from Command Prompt)
   • These scripts are identical using the equivalent commands in each OS.
3. Work through the setup process when prompted.

The upload token will be printed at the end of the setup script prompts. This is the token that you'll need to use to upload resources to ass. It may go by too quickly to copy it, so just scroll back up in your terminal after setup or run cat auth.json.

You should now be able to access the ass server at http://localhost:40115/ (ass-docker will bind to host 0.0.0.0 to allow external access). You can configure a reverse proxy (for example, Caddy; also check out my tutorial) to make it accessible from the internet with automatic SSL.

What is this script doing?

It creates directories & files required for docker-compose to work. It then calls docker-compose to build the image & run ass. On first run, ass will detect an empty config file, so it will run the setup script in a headless terminal with no possible input. Luckily, you can use docker-exec to start your own terminal in which to run the setup script (the install scripts call this for you). After setup, the container is restarted & you are prompted to open logs so you can confirm that the setup was successful. Each install script also has comments for every step, so you can see what's going on.

How do I run the npm scripts?

Since all 3 primary data files are bound to the container with Volumes, you can run the scripts in two ways:

# Use docker-compose exec to check the usage metrics
docker-compose exec ass npm run metrics

# Use docker-compose exec to run the setup script
docker-compose exec ass npm run setup && docker-compose restart

# Run npm on the host to run the setup script (also works for metrics)
# (You will have to meet the Node.js & npm requirements on your host)
npm run setup && docker-compose restart

How do I update?

Easy! Just pull the changes & run this one-liner:

# Pull the latest version of ass
git pull

# Rebuild the container with the new changes (uncomment the 2nd part if the update requires refreshing the config)
docker-compose up --force-recreate --build -d && docker image prune -f # && docker-compose exec ass npm run setup && docker-compose restart

• --force-recreate will force the container to rebuild
• --build will build the image from the latest changes in the directory
• -d will run the container in the background
• docker image prune -f will remove old images that are no longer used by any containers
• These descriptions were suggested by CoPilot, feel free to revise if necessary.

What else should I be aware of?

• docker-compose exposes five volumes. These volumes let you edit the config, view the auth or data files, or view the uploads/ folder from your host.
  • uploads/
  • share/
  • config.json
  • auth.json
  • data.json
• I have personally tested running using these commands (migrating from an existing local deployment!) with Digital Ocean Spaces (S3 object-storage), a PostgreSQL database, & a custom frontend all on the same container. It should also work for you but feel free to let me know if you have any issues.

Local

Expand for local installation steps

1. You should have Node.js 16 & npm 8 or later installed.
2. Clone this repo using git clone https://github.com/tycrek/ass.git && cd ass/
3. Run npm i -g typescript to install TypeScript globally
4. Run npm i --save-dev to install the required dependencies (--save-dev is required for compilation)
5. Run npm run build to compile the TypeScript files
6. Run npm start to start ass.

The first time you run ass, the setup process will automatically be called and you will be shown your first authorization token; save this as you will need it to configure ShareX.

Using HTTPS

For HTTPS support, you must configure a reverse proxy. I recommend Caddy but any reverse proxy should work (such as Apache or Nginx). I also have a tutorial on easily setting up Caddy as a reverse proxy server.

Generating new tokens

If you need to generate a new token at any time, run npm run new-token <username>. This will automatically load the new token so there is no need to restart ass. Username field is optional; if left blank, a random username will be created.

Cloudflare users

In your Cloudflare DNS dashboard, set your domain/subdomain to DNS Only if you experience issues with Proxied.

Configure ShareX

1. Add a new Custom Uploader in ShareX by going to Destinations > Custom uploader settings...
2. Under Uploaders, click New & name it whatever you like.
3. Set Destination type to Image, Text, & File
4. Request tab:
   • Method: POST
   • URL: https://your.domain.name.here/
   • Body: Form data (multipart/form-data)
   • File from name: file (literally put "file" in the field)
   • Headers:
     • Name: Authorization
     • Value: (the value provided by npm start on first run)
5. Response tab:
   • URL: $json:.resource$
   • Thumbnail: $json:.thumbnail$
   • Deletion URL: $json:.delete$
   • Error message: $response$
   • MagicCap users: do not include the . in the above (i.e. $json:resource$)
6. The file sample_config.sxcu can also be modified & imported to suit your needs

Header overrides

If you need to override a specific part of the config to be different from the global config, you may do so via "X" HTTP headers:

Header	Purpose
X-Ass-Domain	Override the domain returned for the clipboard (useful for multi-domain hosts)
X-Ass-Access	Override the generator used for the resource URL. Must be one of: original, zws, gfycat, or random (see above)
X-Ass-Gfycat	Override the length of Gfycat ID's. Defaults to 2
X-Ass-Timeoffset	Override the timestamp offset. Defaults to UTC+0

Fancy embeds

If you primarily share media on Discord, you can add these additional (optional) headers to build embeds:

Header	Purpose
X-Ass-OG-Title	Large text shown above your media
X-Ass-OG-Description	Small text shown below the title but above the media (does not show up on videos)
X-Ass-OG-Author	Small text shown above the title
X-Ass-OG-Author-Url	URL to open when the Author is clicked
X-Ass-OG-Provider	Smaller text shown above the author
X-Ass-OG-Provider-Url	URL to open when the Provider is clicked
X-Ass-OG-Color	Colour shown on the left side of the embed. Must be one of &random, &vibrant, or a hex colour value (for example: #fe3c29). Random is a randomly generated hex value & Vibrant is sourced from the image itself

Embed placeholders

You can insert certain metadata into your embeds with these placeholders:

Placeholder	Result
&size	The files size with proper notation rounded to two decimals (example: 7.06 KB)
&filename	The original filename of the uploaded file
&timestamp	The timestamp of when the file was uploaded (example: Oct 14, 1983, 1:30 PM)

Webhooks

You may use Discord webhooks as an easy way to keep track of your uploads. The first step is to create a new Webhook. You only need to follow the first section, Making a Webhook. Once you are done that, click Copy Webhook URL. Finally, add these headers to your custom uploader:

Header	Purpose
X-Ass-Webhook-Url	The Webhook URL you copied
X-Ass-Webhook-Username	(Optional) the "username" of the Webhook; can be set to whatever you want
X-Ass-Webhook-Avatar	(Optional) URL to an image to use as the Webhook avatar. Use the full URL including https://

Webhooks will show the filename, mimetype, size, upload timestamp, thumbail, & a link to delete the file. To disable webhooks, simply remove the headers from your config.

Customizing the viewer

If you want to customize the font or colours of the viewer page, create a file in the share/ directory called theme.json. Available options are:

Option	Purpose
font	The font family to use; defaults to "Josefin Sans". Fonts with a space should be surrounded by double quotes.
bgPage	Background colour for the whole page
bgViewer	Background colour for the viewer element
txtPrimary	Primary text colour; this should be your main brand colour.
txtSecondary	Secondary text colour; this is used for the file details.
linkHover	Colour of the hover effect for links
linkActive	Colour of the active effect for links
borderHover	Colour of the hover effect for borders; this is used for the underlining links.

Custom index

By default, ass directs the index route / to this README. Follow these steps to use a custom index:

1. Run npm run setup to re-run the setup script.
   • The defaults are set by your existing config, so you can press Enter to accept the defaults on most prompts.
   • The one setting you want to change is Filename for your custom index. Enter a name for your index, including .js (custom index's must be .js files).
2. Make a new file in the share/ directory matching the name you entered (this directory can be found in the ass/ directory. It is created automatically after setup is run).
3. Your index file needs to export a single function taking three arguments: (req, res, next). Some code samples for common use cases are provided below.
4. Restart ass. The startup info logs should say Custom index: enabled.

Custom index code samples

Redirect to a custom frontend registration page

module.exports = (req, res, next) => res.redirect('/register');

Send an HTML file

const path = require('path');
module.exports = (req, res, next) => res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'index.html'));

File storage

ass supports three methods of file storage: local, S3, or Skynet.

Local

Local storage is the simplest option, but relies on you having a lot of disk space to store files, which can be costly.

S3

Any existing object storage server that's compatible with Amazon S3 can be used with ass. I personally host my files using Digital Ocean Spaces, which implements S3.

S3 servers are generally very fast and have very good uptime, though this will depend on the hosting provider and plan you choose.

Skynet

Skynet is a decentralized CDN created by Skynet Labs. It utilizes the Sia blockchain, the leading decentralized cloud storage platform, which boasts "no signups, no servers, no trusted third parties".

For hosts who are looking for a reliable, always available storage solution with lots of capacity and no costs, Skynet may be your best option. However, uploads tend to be on the slower side (though speeds will improve as the Sia network grows).

Custom frontends - OUTDATED

Please be aware that this section is outdated (marked as of 2022-04-15). It will be updated when I overhaul the frontend system.

ass is intended to provide a strong backend for developers to build their own frontends around. Git Submodules make it easy to create custom frontends. Submodules are their own projects, which means you are free to build the router however you wish, as long as it exports the required items. A custom frontend is really just an Express.js router.

For a detailed walkthrough on developing your first frontend, consult the wiki.

Data Engines

Papito data engines are responsible for managing your data. "Data" has two parts: an identifier & the actual data itself. With ass, the data is a JSON object representing the uploaded resource. The identifier is the unique ID in the URL returned to the user on upload.

Supported data engines:

Name	Description	Links
JSON	JSON-based data storage. On disk, data is stored in a JSON file. In memory, data is stored in a Map. This is the default engine.	GitHub npm
PostgreSQL	Data storage using a PostgreSQL database. node-postgres is used for communicating with the database.	GitHub npm
Mongoose	Data storage using a MongoDB database. mongoose is used for communicating with the database. Created by @dylancl	GitHub npm

A Papito data engine implements support for one type of database (or file, such as JSON or YAML). This lets ass server hosts pick their database of choice, because all they'll have to do is enter the connection/authentication details, and ass will handle the rest, using the resource ID as the key.

For a detailed walkthrough on developing engines, consult the wiki. Outdated!

npm scripts

ass has a number of pre-made npm scripts for you to use. All of these scripts should be run using npm run <script-name> (except start).

Script	Description
start	Starts the ass server. This is the default script & is run with npm start.
build	Compiles the TypeScript files into JavaScript.
dev	Chains the build and compile scripts together.
setup	Starts the easy setup process. Should be run after any updates that introduce new config options.
metrics	Runs the metrics script. This is a simple script that outputs basic resource statistics.
purge	Purges all uploads and data associated with them. This does not delete any users, however.
new-token	Generates a new API token. Accepts one parameter for specifying a username, like npm run new-token <username>. ass automatically detects the new token & reloads it, so there's no need to restart the server.
engine-check	Ensures your environment meets the minimum Node & npm version requirements.
docker-logs	Alias for docker-compose logs -f --tail=50 --no-log-prefix ass
docker-update	Calls git pull then runs the docker-uplite script.
docker-uplite	Alias for docker-compose up --force-recreate --build -d && docker image prune -f
docker-upfull	Alias for npm run docker-update && npm run docker-resetup
docker-resetup	Alias for docker-compose exec ass npm run setup && docker-compose restart

Flameshot users (Linux)

Use this script. For the KEY, put your token. Thanks to @ToxicAven for creating this!

Contributing

Please follow the Contributing Guidelines when submiting Issues or Pull Requests.

Credits

• GitHub CoPilot... seriously, this thing is good.
• Special thanks to hlsl#1359 for the awesome logo!
• Gfycat for their wordlists