I hacked together DSLF today because paying a monthly fee for a plain 301 felt silly. It’s a tiny Rust service that reads a CSV and spits out redirects—nothing more.

In the process I learned that HTTP has two “new” redirect codes that slipped past me years ago.

Four ways to say “go over there”

301 and 302 can turn a POST into a GET. 307 and 308 guarantee the original method sticks. Neat.

DSLF defaults to the classic pair, but you can switch to the modern ones with a single flag.

./dslf --modern

Quick start

1. Drop your links in redirects.csv:

   url,target,status
   /gh,https://github.com/vpetersson,301
   /blog,https://vpetersson.com,301
   

2. Run the binary:

   ./dslf
   

   It listens on 0.0.0.0:3000.

3. Or run it in Docker:

   docker run -p 3000:3000 \
     -v $(pwd)/redirects.csv:/redirects.csv \
     vpetersson/dslf --modern
   

   (dslf is already the entrypoint, so just pass the flag.)

Cheap hosting on Fly.io

Fly’s smallest instance plus their free credit is often enough for a personal short-link service. Point fly.toml at vpetersson/dslf, hit fly deploy, and you’re live for pennies—or free if your traffic is tiny.

What I haven’t done yet

• Load testing – numbers will come later once I point k6 at it.
• Click counts – might add an optional flag, but only if it stays lightweight.

Grab the code:

git clone https://github.com/vpetersson/dslf

If you need a no-nonsense, self-hosted link shortener—and want to use those shiny 307/308 codes—give DSLF a spin and tell me what you think.

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