gobookmarks

The purpose of the site is to display a list of links for you to see every time you open your browser. I have tried to move as much of the work into the app as possible with minimal effort but you will need to use GitHub occasionally.

This project is a conversion of a project: goa4web-bookmarks to remove the SQL and replace it with GitHub. Which itself is extracted from goa4web, which is a Go port of a C++ site I made in 2003. Ported using ChatGPT: a4web. It's all been minimally modified and as close to the original as I could get but with the changes I required. I made modifications to this because StartHere my SPA version using modern tech failed because of GitHub OAuth2 restrictions on SPA sites. You can read more about this here: https://arranubels.substack.com/p/quicklinks

How to use

1. Sign up or log in using Git, GitHub or GitLab. On first use the service creates a repository called MyBookmarks in your account containing a bookmarks.txt file like:

   Category: Search
   http://www.google.com.au Google
   Category: Wikis
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page Wikipedia
   http://mathworld.wolfram.com/ Math World
   http://gentoo-wiki.com/Main_Page Gentoo-wiki
   

   

2. Go to the URL this app is deployed at, your private instance or: https://bookmarks.arran.net.au

3. Enjoy

File format

It's a basic file format. Every command must be on its own line; empty lines are ignored.

Code	Meaning
Category[: <category>]	Will create a category title. If unnamed it displays as Category.
<Link>	Will create a link to <Link> with the display name <Link>
<Link> <Name>	Will create a link to <Link> with the display name <Name>
Column	Will create a column
Page[: <name>]	Creates a new page and optionally names it
Tab[: <name>]	Starts a new tab. Without a name it reverts to the main tab (switch using ?tab=<index>)
--	Inserts a horizontal rule and resets columns

Tabs contain one or more pages. The first tab is implicit and does not need a Tab directive unless you want to name it. Each Page line begins a new page within the current tab.

Example with two named columns:

Category: Left
http://left.com
Column
Category: Right
http://right.com

Editing

The /edit page allows updating the entire bookmark file. Each category heading on the index page now includes a small pencil icon link that opens /editCategory. This page shows only the selected category text and saves changes back to your bookmarks without touching other sections. Edits check the file's SHA so you'll get an error if it changed while you were editing.

How to setup for yourself

You can run this yourself. Docker images are published to the GitHub Container Registry as ghcr.io/arran4/gobookmarks. There are also precompiled versions under the releases section of this git repo: https://github.com/arran4/gobookmarks/releases

Configuration values can be supplied as environment variables, via a JSON configuration file or using command line arguments. Environment variables are the lowest priority, followed by the configuration file and finally command line arguments. If /etc/gobookmarks/gobookmarks.env exists it will be loaded before reading the environment.

Name	Description
GITHUB_CLIENT_ID	GitHub OAuth2 client ID
GITHUB_SECRET	GitHub OAuth2 client secret
GITLAB_CLIENT_ID	GitLab OAuth2 client ID
GITLAB_SECRET	GitLab OAuth2 client secret
EXTERNAL_URL	Fully qualified URL the service is reachable on, e.g. http://localhost:8080
GBM_CSS_COLUMNS	If set (to any value) the Column keyword in your bookmarks will create CSS multi-column breaks rather than table cells.
GBM_NAMESPACE	Optional suffix added to the bookmarks repository name.
GBM_TITLE	Overrides the page title shown in the browser.
GBM_NO_FOOTER	Hide footer on pages.
FAVICON_CACHE_DIR	Directory where fetched favicons are stored. If unset icons are kept only in memory. Defaults to /var/cache/gobookmarks/favcache when installed system‑wide (including the Docker image).
FAVICON_CACHE_SIZE	Maximum size in bytes of the favicon cache before old icons are removed. Defaults to 20971520.
GITHUB_SERVER	Base URL for GitHub (set for GitHub Enterprise).
GITLAB_SERVER	Base URL for GitLab (self-hosted).
LOCAL_GIT_PATH	Directory used for the local git provider. Defaults to /var/lib/gobookmarks/localgit when installed system‑wide (including the Docker image).
GBM_NO_FOOTER	Hide the footer on pages.
SESSION_KEY	Secret used to sign session cookies. If unset the program reads or creates session.key under $XDG_STATE_HOME/gobookmarks, $HOME/.local/state/gobookmarks or /var/lib/gobookmarks.
GOBM_ENV_FILE	Path to a file of KEY=VALUE pairs loaded before the environment. Defaults to /etc/gobookmarks/gobookmarks.env.
GOBM_CONFIG_FILE	Path to the JSON config file. If unset the program uses $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/gobookmarks/config.json or $HOME/.config/gobookmarks/config.json for normal users and /etc/gobookmarks/config.json when installed system‑wide or run as root.

Favicons fetched for your bookmarks are cached on disk when FAVICON_CACHE_DIR is set. The /proxy/favicon endpoint also accepts a size parameter to scale icons on the fly.

You can place these settings in /etc/gobookmarks/gobookmarks.env as KEY=VALUE pairs and the service will load them automatically if the file exists. The release packages do not install this file; create it manually if you want to use environment-based settings.

Use --config <path> or set GOBM_CONFIG_FILE to control which configuration file is loaded.

The --title flag or GBM_TITLE environment variable sets the browser page title. The --no-footer flag or GBM_NO_FOOTER environment variable hides the footer on pages. Use --github-server or GITHUB_SERVER to override the GitHub base URL and --gitlab-server or GITLAB_SERVER for GitLab. Use --no-footer or GBM_NO_FOOTER to hide the footer on pages.

Running gobookmarks --version will print the version information along with the list of compiled-in providers. When no OAuth2 credentials are configured the login buttons are hidden. Visit /status to see which providers are available. Use --dump-config to print the final configuration after merging the environment, config file and command line arguments.

Sessions use the key from SESSION_KEY or the config file. When unset, a key is read from session.key in the state directory or generated on first start. If writing this file fails, sessions expire on restart. To keep sessions stable across restarts, provide a fixed key through configuration.

OAuth2 setup

For GitHub visit https://github.com/settings/developers. For GitLab visit https://gitlab.com/-/profile/applications.

Create an application, call it whatever you like. Set the Callback URL to whatever you put in EXTERNAL_URL and add: /oauth2Callback to the end, ie if you entered: http://localhost:8080 it should be: http://localhost:8080/oauth2Callback

Upload logo.png for the logo.

Generate a secret key and use it for the environment variables with the Client Id.

Running as a Service

The release packages include service files for both systemd and FreeBSD rc.d. During installation these files can be copied to your system so the server starts automatically on boot.

When installed from the release packages the service files pass --config /etc/gobookmarks/config.json. An example config file is included in the packages and is installed with permissions 0600 owned by the gobookmarks user. The installation process creates this user automatically and both service files run the daemon as gobookmarks.

Docker

The Docker image continues to work as before and now uses an Alpine base image. Mount /var/cache/gobookmarks if you need persistent storage for favicons and /var/lib/gobookmarks for the git provider. These directories are also the defaults when gobookmarks is installed system-wide under /usr. Pass the same environment variables as listed above. The git provider stores data under $LOCAL_GIT_PATH/<sha256(username)>/ as a git repository with a .password file containing the bcrypt hash. Create an account via /signup/git. This stores the password hash under $LOCAL_GIT_PATH/<sha256(username)>/.password and creates the repository. Log in later via /login/git using the same credentials. Passwords can be updated with the provider's SetPassword method.

To locate the file, compute the SHA-256 of your username and look for the corresponding directory. For example:

echo -n alice | sha256sum

The output hash forms the path $LOCAL_GIT_PATH/<hash>/.password. Favicons are cached on disk under /var/cache/gobookmarks/favcache by default when the program is installed system‑wide or run in Docker. Set FAVICON_CACHE_DIR to an empty string to disable disk caching. You can run the container entirely via environment variables:

docker run -p 8080:8080 \
           -v /my/cache:/var/cache/gobookmarks \
           -v /my/db:/var/lib/gobookmarks \
           -e EXTERNAL_URL=http://localhost:8080 \
           -e GITHUB_CLIENT_ID=abc \
           -e GITHUB_SECRET=def \
           -e FAVICON_CACHE_DIR=/var/cache/gobookmarks/favcache \
           -e LOCAL_GIT_PATH=/var/lib/gobookmarks/localgit \
           ghcr.io/arran4/gobookmarks

Alternatively you can mount a config file and environment file:

docker run -v /my/config.json:/etc/gobookmarks/config.json \
           -v /my/gobookmarks.env:/etc/gobookmarks/gobookmarks.env \
           -v /my/cache:/var/cache/gobookmarks \
           -v /my/db:/var/lib/gobookmarks \
           -p 8080:8080 ghcr.io/arran4/gobookmarks

An example config.json looks like:

{
  "github_client_id": "",
  "github_secret": "",
  "gitlab_client_id": "",
  "gitlab_secret": "",
  "external_url": "http://localhost:8080",
  "css_columns": false,
  "namespace": "",
  "title": "",
  "no_footer": false,
  "github_server": "https://github.com",
  "gitlab_server": "https://gitlab.com",
  "favicon_cache_dir": "/var/cache/gobookmarks/favcache",
  "favicon_cache_size": 20971520,
  "local_git_path": "/var/lib/gobookmarks/localgit",
  "no_footer": false
}

Docker Compose

Using environment variables:

version: '3'
services:
  gobookmarks:
    image: ghcr.io/arran4/gobookmarks
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - cache:/var/cache/gobookmarks
      - db:/var/lib/gobookmarks
    environment:
      EXTERNAL_URL: "http://localhost:8080"
      GITHUB_CLIENT_ID: abc
      GITHUB_SECRET: def
      FAVICON_CACHE_DIR: /var/cache/gobookmarks/favcache
      LOCAL_GIT_PATH: /var/lib/gobookmarks/localgit
volumes:
  cache:
  db:

Using a config and env file:

version: '3'
services:
  gobookmarks:
    image: ghcr.io/arran4/gobookmarks
    ports:
      - "8080:8080"
    volumes:
      - ./config.json:/etc/gobookmarks/config.json:ro
      - ./gobookmarks.env:/etc/gobookmarks/gobookmarks.env:ro
      - cache:/var/cache/gobookmarks
      - db:/var/lib/gobookmarks
volumes:
  cache:
  db: