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, giving users & hosts alike the ability to modify nearly everything.

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
• GPS data automatically removed
• 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
• Timestamp

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 (more coming soon)
• 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 sadly no longer supports these as of April 2023)
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.
Timestamp	The quick but dirty mode. URL is a timestamp of when the file was uploaded, in milliseconds. This is the most unique mode, but also potentially the longest (Gfycat could be longer, easily). Keep in mind this is vulnerable to iteration attacks

Installation

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

Docker

# Check the usage metrics
docker compose exec ass npm run metrics

# 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 for this to work properly)
npm run setup && docker compose restart

# Pull the latest version of ass & rebuild the image
git pull && docker compose build --no-cache && docker compose up -d

Local

Using HTTPS

For HTTPS support, you must configure a reverse proxy. I recommend Caddy but any reverse proxy works fine (such as Apache or Nginx). A sample config for Caddy is provided below:

ass.example.com {
    reverse_proxy localhost:40115
}

Cloudflare users

In your Cloudflare DNS dashboard, set your domain/subdomain to DNS Only if you experience issues with Proxied. This may not be necessary for all users.

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:
5. Method: POST
6. URL: https://your.domain.name.here/
7. Body: Form data (multipart/form-data)
8. File from name: file (literally put "file" in the field)
9. Headers:
   • Name: Authorization
   • Value: (the value provided by npm start on first run)
10. Response tab:
11. URL: {json:.resource}
12. Thumbnail: {json:.thumbnail}
13. Deletion URL: {json:.delete}
14. Error message: {response}
15. MagicCap users: do not include the . in the above & replace {} with $ (i.e. $json:resource$)
16. 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:

Fancy embeds

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

Embed placeholders

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

Server-side embed configuration

You may also specify a default embed config on the server. Keep in mind that if users specify the X-Ass-OG-Title header, the server-side config will be ignored. To configure the server-side embed, create a new file in the share/ directory named embed.json. Available options are:

• title
• description
• author
• authorUrl
• provider
• providerUrl
• color

Their values are equivalent to the headers listed above.

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:

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:

Custom index

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

1. Create a file in the share/ directory called index.html or index.js.
2. ass will treat index.html as an HTML file and will send it to the client.
3. ass will treat index.js as a Node.js file that exports a function representing Express middleware. ass will pass all handling of the index to this function. The function should take three arguments: (req, res, next). Some code samples for common use cases are provided below.
4. If both index.html and index.js are present, the index.html file will be served first.
5. Add whatever you want to the file.
6. Restart ass. The startup info logs should mention which file is being used as the index.

Custom index code samples

Redirect to a custom frontend registration page

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

Custom 404 page

To use a custom 404 page, create a file in the share/ directory called 404.html. Restart ass, and any requests to missing resources will return HTTP 404 with the contents of this file.

If there's interest, I may allow making this a function, similar to the custom index.

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 & have very good uptime, though this will depend on the hosting provider & plan you choose.

New user system (v0.14.0)

The user system was overhauled in v0.14.0 to allow more features and flexibility. New fields on users include admin, passhash, unid, and meta (these will be documented more once the system is finalized).

New installs will automatically generate a default user. Check the auth.json file for the token. You will use this for API requests and to authenticate within ShareX.

ass will automatically convert your old auth.json to the new format. Always backup your auth.json and data.json before updating. By default, the original user (named ass) will be marked as an admin.

Adding users

You may add users via the CLI or the API. I'll document the API further in the future.

CLI

npm run cli-adduser <username> <password> [admin] [meta]

Things still not added:

• Modifying/deleting users via the API

Developer API

ass includes an API (v0.14.0) for frontend developers to easily integrate with. Right now the API is pretty limited but I will expand on it in the future, with frontend developer feedback.

Any endpoints requiring authorization will require an Authorization header with the value being the user's upload token. Admin users are a new feature introduced in v0.14.0. Admin users can access all endpoints, while non-admin users can only access those relevant to them.

Other things to note:

• All endpoints are prefixed with /api/.
• All endpoints will return a JSON object unless otherwise specified.
• Successful endpoints should return a 200 status code. Any errors will use the corresponding 4xx or 5xx status code (such as 401 Unauthorized).
• ass's API will try to be as compliant with the HTTP spec as possible. For example, using POST/PUT for create/modify, and response codes such as 409 Conflict for duplicate entries. This compliance may not be 100% perfect, but I will try my best.

API endpoints

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.

Update 2022-12-24: I plan to overhaul this early in 2023.

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. Update August 2022: I plan to overhaul Papito and how all this works eventually. If this comment is still here in a year, ~~kick~~ message me.

Supported data engines:

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 & 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).

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

• Thanks to hlsl#1359 for the logo
• Gfycat for their wordlists
• Aven, for helping kickstart the project
• My spiteful ass for motivating me to actually take this project to new heights