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FAQ & Troubleshooting

General​

Is MSK Paste free to use?​

Yes. The hosted instance at paste.msk-scripts.de is free for everyone. The source code is published under AGPL-3.0 so you can also self-host it on your own infrastructure.

Do I need an account?​

No. MSK Paste has no user system by design. The delete token you receive after creating a paste is what allows you to remove it later.

Can I edit a paste after creating it?​

No. Pastes are immutable. To "edit" a paste, create a new one and delete the old one with the delete token.

What's the maximum paste size?​

1 MB of text. The limit is enforced server-side and by the database. If you need to share larger files, use a proper file hosting service instead.

How long can a paste live?​

From 10 minutes up to 1 year. The default is 1 week. Once a paste expires, it is unreachable immediately and physically deleted from the database within 24 hours.

Are pastes encrypted?​

The content column is not encrypted at rest — passwords gate viewing but the operator could read the database. If you need real end-to-end secrecy, encrypt the content client-side (e.g. with age or gpg) before pasting.

Can I recover a deleted or expired paste?​

No. Deletion (manual, expiration, or burn-after-read) is permanent. There is no soft-delete and no trash bin.

Can I search public pastes?​

No. Every paste is unlisted — knowing the ID is the only way to find a paste. There is no public directory, no search, and no listing endpoint.

Using the API​

Where's my API key?​

There is no API key. All endpoints are public. Write operations are protected by rate limiting (10 creates per hour per IP hash).

Why am I getting 429 Too Many Requests?​

You've hit the rate limit on POST /api/pastes. Check the Retry-After header for how many seconds to wait. If you're self-hosting and need a higher limit, change RATE_LIMIT_CREATE_PER_HOUR in .env.

How do I delete a paste via the API?​

Send DELETE /api/pastes/:id?token=<deleteToken>. The token was returned in the response when you created the paste.

Can I get a list of all pastes I've created?​

No. There is no per-user history — the database doesn't know which pastes belong to "you". Save the delete tokens client-side if you want a personal history.

Self-hosting​

502 Bad Gateway from Apache​

Apache can't reach the Node process. Check:

sudo systemctl status msk-paste
sudo journalctl -u msk-paste -n 100
sudo ss -tlnp | grep 3012

If the service is failing to start, look at the journal for errors. The most common causes are:

  • Missing or wrong .env values (especially DB_* and IP_HASH_SECRET)
  • Database connection refused
  • Port 3012 already in use by another process

Port 3012 is already in use​

Either stop the conflicting process or change the port in both .env (PORT=3013) and the Apache vhost (ProxyPass http://localhost:3013/). Then restart both services.

"Cannot find module" after deployment​

This usually means npm ci failed or node_modules/ is missing. From the project root:

sudo rm -rf node_modules
sudo npm ci
sudo npm run build
sudo systemctl restart msk-paste

Database errors at boot​

Error: Access denied for user 'msk_paste'@'localhost'

The credentials in .env don't match what's in MariaDB. Verify by trying to log in manually:

mysql -u msk_paste -p msk_paste

If that fails, recreate the user (see Installation).

IP_HASH_SECRET is required on startup​

You missed setting the secret in .env. Generate one:

openssl rand -hex 32

Paste it into .env, then restart the service.

Let's Encrypt rate limit hit​

If you've been experimenting with certbot and hit a rate limit, use the staging environment for testing:

sudo certbot --apache --staging -d paste.example.com

Once you're sure the setup works, run it without --staging to get the real certificate.

Migrations failed in the middle​

The migration runner is idempotent — files that successfully ran are recorded in the _migrations table. Fix the failing SQL file, then run npm run migrate again. Already-applied migrations are skipped.

How do I back up before an update?​

The included script:

sudo bash /opt/msk-paste/deployment/scripts/backup.sh

Creates a SQL dump in /opt/msk-paste/backups/ with a date-stamped filename. Keep 14 days of dumps by default.

Features​

Why is there no file upload?​

Out of scope. MSK Paste is a text pastebin. For files, use a proper file host like Nextcloud or Hetzner Storage Boxes.

Why no comments / discussions / forking?​

Privacy-first design. Anything beyond "share a snippet" adds tracking surface (who commented, who forked, who replied). If you need collaboration, use HedgeDoc instead.

Will you add <language>?​

Open an issue with the language name and Shiki's identifier. Adding a language is usually a one-line change.

Can I customise the theme?​

Yes — fork the repo and change tailwind.config.ts and app/globals.css. The MSK design tokens are concentrated in those two files.

Is there a CLI tool?​

Not officially yet. The REST API page includes a small Bash function (mskpaste()) you can drop into your ~/.bashrc. A proper CLI tool is on the roadmap.

Still stuck?​