Go Links @ Home

Setting up go-links in your homelab using DNS search domains and Traefik for elegant URL shortcuts like go/status.

October 19, 20253 min read

The Problem

Typing full URLs gets tedious. status.example.com is a mouthful when you just want to check your dashboard. What if you could just type go/status in your browser and instantly get there?

The Solution: Go Links

Go links (also known as "go/" shortcuts) have been a staple at companies like Google for years. The concept is simple:

Type go/something in your browser
Get redirected to https://something.example.com

This is typically achieved through DNS search domains combined with HTTP redirects.

I helped develop a "Smartlink" solution during my time at Cisco to implement go-links with auto-correction in the intranet.

How It Works

The magic happens in two parts:

1. DNS Search Domain

Configure your LAN to use a search domain example.com. When you type go/status in your browser:

Your browser searches for go.example.com
DNS resolves go.example.com to your Traefik instance
Request arrives: http://go.example.com/status

2. Traefik Path-Based Redirects

Traefik intercepts the request and applies custom middleware to parse the path and construct a new URL:

$1 = subdomain (extracted from path)
$2 = subpath on destination (optional trailing path)

For example:

go/status -> https://status.example.com
go/grafana/dashboards -> https://grafana.example.com/dashboards

Flow Diagram

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Implementation

Step 1: DNS Configuration

Here is relevant code snippet for my AdGuard Home configuration:

filtering:
...
  rewrites:
    - domain: "go.example.com"
      answer: "192.168.0.2"
    - domain: "go"
      answer: "go.example.com"

Step 2: Traefik Middleware

http:
  middlewares:
    go-slug:
      redirectRegex:
        permanent: false
        regex: "^https?://go(?:\\.example\\.com)?/([^/?#]+)(.*)$"
        replacement: "https://$1.example.com$2"
  routers:
    go:
      entryPoints:
        - web
        - websecure
      middlewares:
        - go-slug
      priority: 100
      rule: "Host(`go`) || Host(`go.example.com`)"
      service: "noop"
  services:
    noop:
      loadBalancer:
        servers:
          - url: "http://127.0.0.1:65535"

Step 3: Common Shortcuts

Now instead of typing full URLs or bookmarking everything, you can simply:

Type go/status -> https://status.example.com
Type go/grafana -> https://grafana.example.com

Clean, fast, and elegant.

Future State: Custom Rule Engine

While the current implementation works great for internal services following the subdomain.example.com pattern, there are cases where you need more flexibility:

The Limitation

Not every shortcut fits the pattern. For example:

go/google -> https://google.com (external site)
go/docs/k8s -> https://kubernetes.io/docs (custom mapping)
go/gh/jovalle -> https://github.com/jovalle (specific profile)
go/technis/pull/24 -> https://github.com/jovalle/technis/pull/24 (parameterized)

These don't map to *.example.com subdomains and require custom rules.

The Solution: Go Link Service

The plan is to build a dedicated go-links application that sits behind Traefik: