* Download the [Composer](https://getcomposer.org/download/) PHP package manager inside the project folder.
* Run `./build.sh 1.0.0`, replacing the version with the version number you are going to build (the version number is only used for the generated dist file).
After that, you will have a `shlink_x.x.x_dist.zip` dist file inside the `build` directory.
This is the process used when releasing new shlink versions. After tagging the new version with git, the Github release is automatically created by [travis](https://travis-ci.org/shlinkio/shlink), attaching generated dist file to it.
* Setup the application by running the `bin/install` script. It is a command line tool that will guide you through the installation process. **Take into account that this tool has to be run directly on the server where you plan to host Shlink. Do not run it before uploading/moving it there.**
* Expose shlink to the web, either by using a traditional web server + fast CGI approach, or by using a [swoole](https://www.swoole.co.uk/) non-blocking server.
For example, assuming your domain is doma.in and shlink is in the `/path/to/shlink` folder, these would be the basic configurations for Nginx and Apache.
Once installed, it's actually pretty easy to get shlink up and running with swoole. Just run `./vendor/bin/zend-expressive-swoole start -d` and you will get shlink running on port 8080.
However, by doing it this way, you are loosing all the access logs, and the service won't be automatically run if the server has to be restarted.
For that reason, you should create a daemon script, in `/etc/init.d/shlink_swoole`, like this one, replacing `/path/to/shlink` by the path to your shlink installation:
Then run these commands to enable the service and start it:
*`sudo chmod +x /etc/init.d/shlink_swoole`
*`sudo update-rc.d shlink_swoole defaults`
*`sudo update-rc.d shlink_swoole enable`
*`/etc/init.d/shlink_swoole start`
Now again, you can access shlink on port 8080, but this time the service will be automatically run at system start-up, and all access logs will be written in `/var/log/shlink/shlink_swoole.log` (you will probably want to [rotate those logs](https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-manage-logfiles-with-logrotate-on-ubuntu-16-04). You can find an example logrotate config file [here](data/infra/examples/shlink-daemon-logrotate.conf)).
* Generate your first API key by running `bin/cli api-key:generate`. You will need the key in order to interact with shlink's API.
* Finally access to [https://app.shlink.io](https://app.shlink.io) and configure your server to start creating short URLs.
**Bonus**
There are a couple of time-consuming tasks that shlink expects you to do manually, or at least it is recommended, since it will improve runtime performance.
Those tasks can be performed using shlink's CLI, so it should be easy to schedule them to be run in the background (for example, using cron jobs):
When shlink is installed it downloads a fresh [GeoLite2](https://dev.maxmind.com/geoip/geoip2/geolite2/) db file. Running this command will update this file.
In future versions, it is planed that, when using **swoole** to serve shlink, some of these tasks are automatically run without blocking the request and also, without having to configure cron jobs. Probably resolving IP locations and generating previews.
The `bin/update` script will ask you for the location from previous shlink version, and use it in order to import the configuration. It will then update the database and generate some assets shlink needs to work.
**Important!** It is recommended that you don't skip any version when using this process. The update gets better on every version, but older versions might make assumptions.
Starting with version 1.15.0, an official docker image is provided. You can find the docs on how to use it [here](https://hub.docker.com/r/shlinkio/shlink/).
* **The REST API**. The complete docs on how to use the API can be found [here](https://shlink.io/api-docs), and a sandbox which also documents every endpoint can be found [here](https://shlink.io/swagger-ui/index.html).
However, you probably don't want to consume the raw API yourself. That's why a nice [web client](https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink-web-client) is provided that can be directly used from [https://app.shlink.io](https://app.shlink.io), or you can host it yourself too.
config:generate-charset [DEPRECATED] Generates a character set sample just by shuffling the default one, "0123456789abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ". Then it can be set in the SHORTCODE_CHARS environment variable
config:generate-secret [DEPRECATED] Generates a random secret string that can be used for JWT token encryption
short-url:delete [short-code:delete] Deletes a short URL
short-url:generate [shortcode:generate|short-code:generate] Generates a short URL for provided long URL and returns it
short-url:list [shortcode:list|short-code:list] List all short URLs
short-url:parse [shortcode:parse|short-code:parse] Returns the long URL behind a short code
short-url:process-previews [shortcode:process-previews|short-code:process-previews] Processes and generates the previews for every URL, improving performance for later web requests.
short-url:visits [shortcode:visits|short-code:visits] Returns the detailed visits information for provided short code
