Privacy Switches

Problem

Many companies do not allow their systems to contact social media sites or other third-party services, and block or audit such traffic. PatchMon currently does several of these things on its own:

- Shows Discord, GitHub, LinkedIn and YouTube buttons (top bar, login page, setup wizard), plus donate / membership buttons

- Offers Discord login, which contacts discord.com

- Sends daily anonymous telemetry to metrics.patchmon.cloud (on by default)

- Makes DNS TXT lookups of server/agent.vcheck.patchmon.net for version checks, including when agents poll the server

- Queries api.github.com from the browser on every visit to the login page (on by default)

- Posts newsletter sign-ups to the PatchMon marketing list

Some of these can be toggled in the UI, most cannot, and none can be enforced for a whole installation. In a restricted environment that alone rules PatchMon out, even where it would otherwise be a good fit.

Proposed solution

One environment variable per feature, all off by default, so existing installs behave exactly as today:

- HIDE_SOCIAL_LINKS

- HIDE_DONATE_BUTTONS

- DISABLE_DISCORD_AUTH

- DISABLE_TELEMETRY

- DISABLE_VERSION_CHECK

- DISABLE_GITHUB_VERSION_ON_LOGIN

- DISABLE_NEWSLETTER

The server enforces each switch; the UI only reflects the state. For example, with DISABLE_DISCORD_AUTH the Discord routes are never registered. Integrations an admin configures themselves (AI providers, alert channels, SMTP, OIDC) stay untouched.

Implementation

I have already implemented this, with tests and docs, in PR #1114:

https://github.com/PatchMon/PatchMon/pull/1114

I am happy to adjust it to whatever direction you prefer, e.g. a single OFFLINE_MODE switch instead of individual flags.