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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 2 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] 23 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I remember this mindset in myself. Today I consider it a waste of time.

If you rely on any tool for this, the tool will make mistakes you cannot accept. If you do it manually, you will make mistakes as well and that also does not work. Also, the information your consider worthy for removal might be key to understanding the problem.

Like, you remove your name, but a certain character in your name is what is actually tripping up the program.

Ultimately, don't post your logs publicly. In the past years, I was always able to email logs to devs. I have no reason not to trust them with my log. If they want data from me, they could easily exfiltrate it through their actual application.

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

This is the best advice. There's nothing to be gained from having your info. I have sent logs to many independent devs / shops and have no fear about it. Having spent years looking at other peoples' logs, I can tell you that people only care about resolving bugs to make their jobs easier.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

This is admittedly a bit pedantic but it's not that the risk doesn't exist (there may be quite a lot to gain from having your info). It's because the risk is quite low and the benefit is worth the favorable gamble. Not dissimilar to discussing deeply personal health details with medical professionals. Help begins with trust.

There's an implicit trust (and often an explicit and enforceable legal agreement in professional contexts (trust, but verify)) between sys admins and troubleshooters. Good admins want quiet happy systems and good devs want to squash bugs. If the dev also dons a black hat occasionally they'd be idiotic to shit where they eat. Not many idiots are part of teams that build things lots of people use.

edit: ope replied to the wrong comment