Sending Anonymized Log Files To A Responder
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## Sending Anonymized Log Files To A Responder

For more privacy, you can anonymize your log somewhat before sending it to a responder. Lire includes a command called lr_anonymize which will transform everything that looks like an IP address, an email or a domain name into an anonymized form (`10.0.0.1`, `2.0.0.10.in-addr.arpa`, `11.example.com`, `<john.doe@2.example.com>`, etc.) The mapping between the real value and its anonymized form is saved in a disk database so that you can reverse the process when you receive the report from the responder.

The procedure is quite simple, you just have to filter your log file through lr_anonymize and make sure that the subject of your email starts with `anon`.

Example 3.6. Sending An Anonymized Postfix Log File To A Responder

To send an anonymized postfix log file to the Stichting LogReport Foundation responder, you would use a command like:

    $  grep ' postfix/' /var/log/mail.log | \
        lr_run lr_anonymize /tmp/anon | \
        mail -s "anon Daily Report" log@postfix.logreport.org

The `/tmp/anon` is the database that is used to save the mapping between the real and anonymized values.

### Warning

lr_anonymize will overwrite the content of that database, so if you reuse the database, make sure that you don't have two concurrent requests to a responder because you will lose the first mappings!

### Processing The Responder's Results

The responder will generate a report in an XML format specific to Lire. To obtain a "normal" report from this, you first deanonymize it, then run the appropriate converter on the deanonymized report. The converter for a specific output format is called lr_xml2`format`. For example, you would use the lr_xml2pdf command to generate a PDF report.

Example 3.7. Deanonymizing and Generating A HTML Report

To generate a HTML report from the XML report you received from the responder, you would use the following command:

    $  lr_run lr_deanonymize /tmp/anon < /tmp/anon-report.xml > /tmp/report.xml
    $  lr_run lr_xml2report -o html /tmp/report.xml > /tmp/report.html

You could also generate charts by adding the `-i` to the lr_xml2report command.

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