logdebarker/README.md

# logdebarker

`logdebarker` is a UNIX-style log sanitizer tool written in Go. It censors sensitive information from logs, config files, and other text streams based on user-defined patterns. This is useful for cleaning data before exporting logs or sharing files.

## Features

* Accepts input from STDIN or a file
* Outputs to STDOUT or a specified output file
* Uses `$HOME/.blocked_words.txt` as a pattern file for matching sensitive strings
* Enforces strict file permissions on the config file (`0700` only)
* Supports custom redaction strings (e.g. `redaction: <string>`)
* Ignores comment lines beginning with `#` in both input and config

## Usage

Pipe logs through `logdebarker`:

```sh
sudo cat /var/log/someprogram/log.log | logdebarker | tee cleaned_log.txt
```

Sanitize a file to a new output file:

```sh
sudo logdebarker /etc/nginx/conf.d/somesite.conf output.txt
```

## Configuration

`logdebarker` reads its blocklist from:

```
$HOME/.blocked_words.txt
```

Each line should be a literal string to redact. Lines starting with `#` are ignored. You may optionally define one redaction string:

```
redaction: [your-censor-string]
```

Example `.blocked_words.txt`:

```
# block API keys
redaction: <removed>
ABC123XYZ456
supersecretpassword
```

## Security

To protect your sensitive word list, `logdebarker` will refuse to run if `$HOME/.blocked_words.txt` is not `chmod 700`.

```sh
chmod 700 ~/.blocked_words.txt
```

## Installation

1. Clone and build:

```sh
git clone https://your.git.repo/logdebarker.git
cd logdebarker
go build -o logdebarker
```

2. Move the binary to your PATH:

```sh
sudo mv logdebarker /usr/local/bin/
```

OR

`go install archuser.org/logdebarker`

## License

This project is released under the GPLv3 License.

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For bug reports, suggestions, or contributions, open an issue or submit a pull request.