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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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How to anonymize logs before sharing? (self.linux)

submitted 4 months ago by ouch to c/[email protected]

24 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Many projects ask to share lots of logs when reporting issues. It's difficult to go through all the logs and redact informarion such as usernames, environment variabled etc.

Any ideas on how to anonymize logs before sharing? Change your username to something generic?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

For me this typically involves doing a search&replace for my username, hostname, and IP addres(es)

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 months ago

This is the correct answer. Private IPs are less concerning (on noes now someone knows a network in my homelab is 10.0.0.1/24!) - but absolutely change public IPs in logs.

If it's necessary to reference external users/systems in multiple log files, I'll change the names to user1, user2, server1, db2, etc

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

This can also be mitigated by using a username and/or hostname that doesn't leak private data.

No need to make your username your real name, or make your hostname contain anything more revealing than say "living room thinkpad"

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago

Counterpoint: https://xkcd.com/910/

Also, both hostname and username might fit a company schema that you want to anonymize.