# IP Address Anonymization Module (mmanon)

Module Name: | mmanon
Author: | Rainer Gerhards <rgerhards@adiscon.com>
Available since: | 7.3.7

## Purpose

The mmanon module permits to anonymize IP addresses. It is a message modification module that actually changes the IP address inside the message, so after calling mmanon, the original message can no longer be obtained. Note that anonymization will break digital signatures on the message, if they exist.

Please note that log files can also be anonymized via SLFA after they have been created.

How are IP-Addresses defined?

We assume that an IPv4 address consists of four octets in dotted notation, where each of the octets has a value between 0 and 255, inclusively.

An IPv6 is defined by being bewtween zero and eight hex values between 0 and ffff. These are separated by ‘:’. Leading zeros in blocks can be omitted and blocks full of zeros can be abbreviated by using ‘::’. However, this can ony happen once in an IP address.

An IPv6 address with embedded IPv4 is an IPv6 address where the last two blocks have been replaced by an IPv4 address. (see also: RFC4291, 2.2.3)

## Configuration Parameters

Note

Parameter names are case-insensitive.

### Action Parameters

Parameters starting with ‘IPv4.’ will configure IPv4 anonymization, while ‘IPv6.’ parameters do the same for IPv6 anonymization.

#### ipv4.enable

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | on | no | none

Allows to enable or disable the anonymization of IPv4 addresses.

#### ipv4.mode

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
word | zero | no | none

There exist the “simple”, “random”, “random-consitent”, and “zero” modes. In simple mode, only octets as whole can be anonymized and the length of the message is never changed. This means that when the last three octets of the address 10.1.12.123 are anonymized, the result will be 10.0.00.000. This means that the length of the original octets is still visible and may be used to draw some privacy-evasive conclusions. This mode is slightly faster than the other modes, and this may matter in high throughput environments.

The modes “random” and “random-consistent” are very similar, in that they both anonymize ip-addresses by randomizing the last bits (any number) of a given address. However, while “random” mode assigns a new random ip-address for every address in a message, “random-consitent” will assign the same randomized address to every instance of the same original address.

The default “zero” mode will do full anonymization of any number of bits and it will also normalize the address, so that no information about the original IP address is available. So in the above example, 10.1.12.123 would be anonymized to 10.0.0.0.

#### ipv4.bits

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
positive integer | 16 | no | none

This sets the number of bits that should be anonymized (bits are from the right, so lower bits are anonymized first). This setting permits to save network information while still anonymizing user-specific data. The more bits you discard, the better the anonymization obviously is. The default of 16 bits reflects what German data privacy rules consider as being sufficinetly anonymized. We assume, this can also be used as a rough but conservative guideline for other countries. Note: when in simple mode, only bits on a byte boundary can be specified. As such, any value other than 8, 16, 24 or 32 is invalid. If an invalid value is given, it is rounded to the next byte boundary (so we favor stronger anonymization in that case). For example, a bit value of 12 will become 16 in simple mode (an error message is also emitted).

#### ipv4.replaceChar

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
char | x | no | none

In simple mode, this sets the character that the to-be-anonymized part of the IP address is to be overwritten with. In any other mode the parameter is ignored if set.

#### ipv6.enable

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | on | no | none

Allows to enable or disable the anonymization of IPv6 addresses.

#### ipv6.anonmode

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
word | zero | no | none

This defines the mode, in which IPv6 addresses will be anonymized. There exist the “random”, “random-consistent”, and “zero” modes.

The modes “random” and “random-consistent” are very similar, in that they both anonymize ip-addresses by randomizing the last bits (any number) of a given address. However, while “random” mode assigns a new random ip-address for every address in a message, “random-consistent” will assign the same randomized address to every instance of the same original address.

The default “zero” mode will do full anonymization of any number of bits and it will also normalize the address, so that no information about the original IP address is available.

Also note that an anonymmized IPv6 address will be normalized, meaning there will be no abbreviations, leading zeros will not be displayed, and capital letters in the hex numerals will be lowercase.

#### ipv6.bits

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
positive integer | 96 | no | none

This sets the number of bits that should be anonymized (bits are from the right, so lower bits are anonymized first). This setting permits to save network information while still anonymizing user-specific data. The more bits you discard, the better the anonymization obviously is. The default of 96 bits reflects what German data privacy rules consider as being sufficinetly anonymized. We assume, this can also be used as a rough but conservative guideline for other countries.

#### embeddedipv4.enable

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
binary | on | no | none

Allows to enable or disable the anonymization of IPv6 addresses with embedded IPv4.

#### embeddedipv4.anonmode

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
word | zero | no | none

This defines the mode, in which IPv6 addresses will be anonymized. There exist the “random”, “random-consistent”, and “zero” modes.

The modes “random” and “random-consistent” are very similar, in that they both anonymize ip-addresses by randomizing the last bits (any number) of a given address. However, while “random” mode assigns a new random ip-address for every address in a message, “random-consistent” will assign the same randomized address to every instance of the same original address.

The default “zero” mode will do full anonymization of any number of bits and it will also normalize the address, so that no information about the original IP address is available.

Also note that an anonymmized IPv6 address will be normalized, meaning there will be no abbreviations, leading zeros will not be displayed, and capital letters in the hex numerals will be lowercase.

#### embeddedipv4.bits

type | default | mandatory | `obsolete legacy` directive
--- | --- | --- | ---
positive integer | 96 | no | none

This sets the number of bits that should be anonymized (bits are from the right, so lower bits are anonymized first). This setting permits to save network information while still anonymizing user-specific data. The more bits you discard, the better the anonymization obviously is. The default of 96 bits reflects what German data privacy rules consider as being sufficinetly anonymized. We assume, this can also be used as a rough but conservative guideline for other countries.

## See Also

- Howto anonymize messages that go to specific files

## Caveats/Known Bugs

- will not anonymize addresses in the header

## Examples

### Anonymizing messages

In this snippet, we write one file without anonymization and another one with the message anonymized. Note that once mmanon has run, access to the original message is no longer possible (execept if stored in user variables before anonymization).

    module(load="mmanon")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/non-anon.log")
    action(type="mmanon" ipv6.enable="off")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/anon.log")

### Anonymizing a specific part of the ip address

This next snippet is almost identical to the first one, but here we anonymize the full IPv4 address. Note that by modifying the number of bits, you can anonymize different parts of the address. Keep in mind that in simple mode (used here), the bit values must match IP address bytes, so for IPv4 only the values 8, 16, 24 and 32 are valid. Also, in this example the replacement is done via asterisks instead of lower-case “x”-letters. Also keep in mind that “replacementChar” can only be set in simple mode.

    module(load="mmanon") action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/non-anon.log")
    action(type="mmanon" ipv4.bits="32" ipv4.mode="simple" replacementChar="\*" ipv6.enable="off")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/anon.log")

### Anonymizing an odd number of bits

The next snippet is also based on the first one, but anonymizes an “odd” number of bits, 12. The value of 12 is used by some folks as a compromise between keeping privacy and still permitting to gain some more in-depth insight from log files. Note that anonymizing 12 bits may be insufficient to fulfill legal requirements (if such exist).

    module(load="mmanon") action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/non-anon.log")
    action(type="mmanon" ipv4.bits="12" ipv6.enable="off") action(type="omfile"
    file="/path/to/anon.log")

### Anonymizing ipv4 and ipv6 addresses

You can also anonymize IPv4 and IPv6 in one go using a configuration like this.

    module(load="mmanon") action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/non-anon.log")
    action(type="mmanon" ipv4.bits="12" ipv6.bits="128" ipv6.anonmode="random") action(type="omfile"
    file="/path/to/anon.log")

### Anonymizing with default values

It is also possible to use the default configuration for both types of anonymization. This will result in IPv4 addresses being anonymized in zero mode anonymizing 16 bits. IPv6 addresses will also be anonymized in zero mode anonymizing 96 bits.

    module(load="mmanon")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/non-anon.log")
    action(type="mmanon")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/anon.log")

### Anonymizing only ipv6 addresses

Another option is to only anonymize IPv6 addresses. When doing this you have to disable IPv4 aonymization. This example will lead to only IPv6 addresses anonymized (using the random-consistent mode).

    module(load="mmanon")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/non-anon.log")
    action(type="mmanon" ipv4.enable="off" ipv6.anonmode="random-consistent")
    action(type="omfile" file="/path/to/anon.log")

See also

Help with configuring/using `Rsyslog`:

- Mailing list - best route for general questions

- GitHub: rsyslog source project - detailed questions, reporting issues that are believed to be bugs with `Rsyslog`

- Stack Exchange (View, Ask) - experimental support from rsyslog community

See also

Contributing to `Rsyslog`:

- Source project: rsyslog project README.

- Documentation: rsyslog-doc project README

Copyright 2008-2020 Rainer Gerhards (Großrinderfeld), and Others.