Hey Pierre,

I'm not an Apache developer, so my proposals don't matter.

Yet from an operational standpoint, it is far easier to use a new
functionality in an existing module (that is already a prerequisite
for ModSecurity in this particular case), then convincing your users
to add a new module.

Best,

Christian

On Sun, Nov 02, 2025 at 05:42:16PM +0100, Pierre Pilou wrote:
> Hi Christian,
> Thanks for your response
> What is your advice? Let mod_random be proposed as another module that
> lives in parallele of mod_unique_id (my preference) ? Or move my code into
> mod_unique_id?
> 
> Kind Regards
> 
> Le dim. 2 nov. 2025 à 17:24, Christian Folini via dev <[email protected]>
> a écrit :
> 
> > On Sun, Nov 02, 2025 at 12:53:52PM +0100, Pierre Pilou wrote:
> > > mod_unique_id provides a unique but deterministic variable based on a
> > > timestamp and a counter. The counter requires a lock via apr_atomic_inc32
> > > to guarantee the correlation between requests (and could be a performance
> > > issue). I thought this module was mainly used for correlation in a
> > logging
> > > system rather than for use in a security system.
> >
> > I'm sure that's the main use. But entropy is very hard to come by within
> > the Apache config / ModSecurity rule language. And this is what we came up
> > with.
> >
> > For those interested, here is the rules in question:
> >
> >
> > https://github.com/coreruleset/coreruleset/blob/main/rules/REQUEST-901-INITIALIZATION.conf#L400
> >
> > If we could get that out of a mod_unique_id environment variable, it would
> > be much easier.
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Christian
> >
> >
> > --
> > It's really hard to innovate if you're afraid to open your mouth.
> > -- Greg Lukianoff
> >

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