Anonymizing IPs in apache access/error logs

Question

I'd like to give my server's visitors more anonymity and do not want to store their IP address in the access and error logs anymore. This is possible in several ways, e.g. by following ApacheLogsWithoutIPs or just using mod_removeip.

Unfortunately this means that I cannot track the number of unique visitors to my site anymore - which is a problem for me.

Thus I'm looking for a way to store an anonymized IP address in the apache logs that doesn't reveal the user's real IP address but still allows to differentiate between the visitors in awstats. What can I do? I'd prefer an Apache in-built solution and not a script that walks over the logs after writing them.

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Related:

• Anonymize IP logging in nginx?

Answer 1

If you want to use an apache module there is mod_anonstats, which can be used to hash the ip address using md5.

If you need to track distinct users, just keep the ASSaltTimeout parameter to a high value.