URL Shortener

​

What you’ll do

• Start the application and its dependencies with Docker Compose.
• Mint a short link via the /shorten endpoint.
• Use the provided hammer script to send 200 requests to that short link.
• Inspect the application logs (and Postgres) to confirm every request was recorded.

​

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed
• curl (or any HTTP client)
• Access to the lab environment where the repository and hammer.sh script exist

​

Quick lab steps

1. Start services:

docker compose up app redis pg

2. Mint a short link:

POST /shorten - returns a short code in JSON

3. Hammer the short link:

./hammer.sh <SHORT_CODE>

4. Inspect logs to confirm every request hit Postgres.

​

Detailed example session

docker compose up app redis pg

curl -X POST localhost:8000/shorten -d 'https://kodekloud.com'

{"code": "2Bi"}

./hammer.sh 2Bi

​

Inspecting logs and Postgres

• Watch the application logs printed to the terminal from docker compose up — you should see log lines for each redirect request.
• Alternatively, connect to the Postgres container and query the table that stores hits (table name may vary by lab). Example:

# enter the postgres container (example container name: pg)
docker exec -it <pg-container> psql -U postgres

# inside psql, run a simple count (replace table_name with actual table)
SELECT COUNT(*) FROM table_name WHERE short_code = '2Bi';

​

Endpoints reference

​

Troubleshooting tips

• If you get an unexpected short code, always use the returned code when running ./hammer.sh.
• Ensure the app, redis, and pg services are healthy in docker compose ps before sending traffic.
• If logs show errors connecting to Postgres, confirm network/service names in docker-compose.yml and that the DB has initialized.

​

Links and references

• Docker Compose: https://docs.docker.com/compose/
• curl manual: https://curl.se/docs/manpage.html
• PostgreSQL documentation: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/