Removal/obfuscation of personally identifiable information from panic logs

Development
1

Apart from actual technical information, the panic logs currently seem to contain the following data.

  1. Computer name and user name
  2. Config file path
  3. Folder and device names and IDs
  4. IP addresses

and also

  1. If Syncthing has been compiled locally, then that folder path is also included.

There may be more, but this is what I can see in my panic log files.

Except for 5, the data comes from the standard Syncthing logs, but the difference is that those are local. The panic logs, on the other hand, are reported automatically, and their on/off switch is hidden under the Advanced Configuration, which means that many of the casual users may not even be aware of it.

Is all this information really needed for troubleshooting? If not, then I would like to strongly propose removing/obfuscating it before uploading the logs, just to ensure that no personally identifiable information is ever exposed outside of the userā€™s computer.

2

All of this is not part of reported panic logs. Panic logs are only the part where it says ā€œpanic: ā€¦ā€ and then lots of "goroutine"s. No personal info in there. Thereā€™s some metadata attached, but thatā€™s just build info: Version, OS, architecture (probably not complete).

3

Well, I was looking at the panic-*-*.reported.log files, so I apologise if I got a wrong impression. I have now checked the Docs (https://docs.syncthing.net/users/crashrep.html), and if the one included there is correct, then you are indeed right.

Although the first line does seem to contain the computer and user name, does it not? I mean specifically the XXX@XXX part after the version number, which is jb@kvin.kastelo.net in the Docs, and my computername@username here. Is this because I am using a locally compiled version?

4

I guess itā€™s indeed a bit misleading that itā€™s named reported. The local panic log has the additional info, as itā€™s relevant, but it gets ā€œsanitizedā€ before sending it. The reported part on the filename indicates to Syncthing that it doesnā€™t need to report it again.

Thatā€™s the computer of the builder, yes. If you build your binaries yourself, that will indeed be included.

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5

Yeah, but I should have read the Docs before posting anyway :sweat:.

Would it be a problem if I add a note to the Docs about the inclusion of the builderā€™s computer name and folder path when using self-built binaries?

6

Definitely not, thatā€™s a good thing to document.

7

If you donā€™t prefer to add that build meta you could

SET COMPUTERNAME=unknown
SET USERDOMAIN=unknown
SET USERNAME=unknown

before the build.

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8

Thank you!

I guess that there is no way to do anything about the Go installation folder and Syncthing build folder paths being included in the logs?

I have filed a pull request to update the Docs.

9

There is, thereā€™s a build flag to only store the relative paths. I tried to enable it a little while back but itā€™s Go 1.14+ only and weā€™re currently allowing build with Go 1.13. Weā€™ll add it to the build scripts when Go 1.15 is out.

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