🌐 URL Shortener

A secure and reliable full-stack web application to shorten long URLs and manage them with user authentication and session-based access.

🚀 Features

• 🔗 Shorten any valid URL
• 🔐 User authentication with sessions (Login/Register/Logout)
• 👤 Authenticated dashboard to manage your short URLs
• 📊 Track the number of clicks on each URL
• 🧠 Middleware-based custom authentication system
• 🖥️ Simple, clean UI with EJS templates and CSS

---

🛠️ Tech Stack

Layer	Technology
Frontend	HTML, CSS, EJS
Backend	Node.js, Express.js
Database	MongoDB, Mongoose
Auth	Sessions + Middleware

---

Folder Structure

project-root/ │ ├── models/ # Mongoose schemas (User, URL) |── controllers/ # functions of routes ├── routes/ # Express routes (auth, urls, etc.) ├── views/ # EJS templates (home, login, dashboard, about) ├── public/css/ # Static CSS styling ├── middleware/ # Custom authentication middleware ├── connection.js ├── /service # hashmap to get and set id ├── index.js # Main server file └── README.md # Project documentation

---

🔧 Installation & Setup

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/url-shortener.git
   cd url-shortener

2. Install dependencies (npm install)
3. Start server (node index.js)

---

🔐 Authentication

This app uses custom session-based authentication:

• Passwords are securely hashed using bcrypt.
• Sessions are managed using express-session with a MongoDB store.
• Custom middleware protects routes (e.g., dashboard, URL management).

---

⚙️ Setup Instructions

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/your-username/url-shortener.git
cd url-shortener


Install dependencies

npm install

npm start