validateURL

validateURL is a standalone bash script installed alongside lnk by make setup. It performs a live HTTP check against any URL and reports whether it is reachable, what status code it returns, and how long it took.

$ validateURL https://github.com/vanityURLs

It is called automatically by lnk validate --live, but you can also run it directly on any URL — not just redirect destinations.

Usage

$ validateURL https://github.com/vanityURLs
200 OK (87ms) ✓

$ validateURL https://summit2023.example.com
404 Not Found ✗

$ validateURL https://gone.example.com
Connection refused ✗

Options

Option	Description
`--timeout SECS`	Request timeout in seconds (default: 10)
`--follow`, `-L`	Follow redirect chains; report final destination
`--head`, `-I`	Use HTTP HEAD instead of GET (faster, no body)
`--quiet`, `-q`	Print only exit code — 0 for success, 1 for failure

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
`0`	URL returned 2xx or 3xx
`1`	URL returned 4xx, 5xx, or connection failed

Examples

# Check a single URL
validateURL https://github.com/vanityURLs

# Follow redirects (e.g. http → https)
validateURL --follow http://github.com/vanityURLs
http://github.com/vanityURLs
  → 301 → https://github.com/vanityURLs  (12ms)
  → 200 OK  (91ms) ✓

# Silent check for use in scripts
if validateURL --quiet https://mysite.com; then
    echo "Site is up"
else
    echo "Site is down — check before deploying!"
fi

# Check all destinations in static.lnk
awk '{print $2}' static.lnk | grep '^https\?://' | while read url; do
    validateURL "$url"
done

Integration with lnk validate

lnk validate --live calls validateURL on every destination URL in your link files and aggregates the results:

$ lnk validate --live
Validating static.lnk... OK ✓
Checking 7 destination URLs via validateURL...
  https://vanityURLs.link/            200 OK (43ms) ✓
  https://vanityURLs.link/en/blog     200 OK (51ms) ✓
  https://github.com/vanityURLs/      200 OK (87ms) ✓
  https://github.com/vanityURLs/v8s.link  200 OK (89ms) ✓
  https://gitlab.com/bhdicaire/       200 OK (112ms) ✓
  https://linkedin.com/in/bhdicaire/  200 OK (156ms) ✓
  https://x.com/BHDicaire/            200 OK (71ms) ✓
All URLs reachable. ✓

Common failure patterns

404 — destination deleted or renamed

validateURL https://summit2023.example.com
404 Not Found ✗

The redirect destination no longer exists. Update or remove the redirect rule.

Timeout — destination unreachable

validateURL --timeout 5 https://slow-api.example.com
Timeout after 5s ✗

The server is not responding. Check if the URL is correct, or increase the timeout.

Certificate error — HTTPS misconfigured

validateURL https://expired.example.com
SSL certificate error ✗

The destination has an expired or invalid TLS certificate. The redirect will still work for most browsers (they show a warning), but consider updating the destination.