PostgreSQL Anonymizer

A commandline tool to anonymize PostgreSQL databases for GDPR purposes.

It uses a YAML definition file to define which tables and fields should be anonymized and provides various methods of anonymization.

Contents

1 Features
2 Installation
3 Usage
- 3.1 Database dump
4 Quickstart
5 Docker

1 Features

Intentionally compatible with Python 2.7 (for old, productive platforms)
Anonymize PostgreSQL tables on data level entry with various methods (s. table below)
Exclude data for anonymization depending on regular expressions
Truncate entire tables for unwanted data

Field	Value	Provider	Output
`first_name`	John	`choice`	(Bob\|Larry\|Lisa)
`title`	Dr.	`clear`
`street`	Irving St	`faker.street_name`	Miller Station
`password`	dsf82hFxcM	`mask`	XXXXXXXXXX
`email`	jane.doe@example.com	`md5`	0cba00ca3da1b283a57287bcceb17e35
`ip`	157.50.1.20	`set`	127.0.0.1

See the documentation for a more detailed description of the provided anonymization methods.

2 Installation

The default installation method is to use pip:

$ pip install pganonymize

3 Usage

usage: pganonymize [-h] [-v] [-l] [--schema SCHEMA] [--dbname DBNAME]
               [--user USER] [--password PASSWORD] [--host HOST]
               [--port PORT] [--dry-run] [--dump-file DUMP_FILE]

Anonymize data of a PostgreSQL database

optional arguments:
-h, --help            show this help message and exit
-v, --verbose         Increase verbosity
-l, --list-providers  Show a list of all available providers
--schema SCHEMA       A YAML schema file that contains the anonymization
                        rules
--dbname DBNAME       Name of the database
--user USER           Name of the database user
--password PASSWORD   Password for the database user
--host HOST           Database hostname
--port PORT           Port of the database
--dry-run             Don't commit changes made on the database
--dump-file DUMP_FILE
                        Create a database dump file with the given name

Despite the database connection values, you will have to define a YAML schema file, that includes all anonymization rules for that database. Take a look at the schema documentation or the YAML sample schema.

Example call:

$ pganonymize --schema=myschema.yml \
    --dbname=test_database \
    --user=username \
    --password=mysecret \
    --host=db.host.example.com \
    -v

3.1 Database dump

With the --dump-file argument it is possible to create a dump file after anonymizing the database. Please note, that the pg_dump command from the postgresql-client-common library is necessary to create the dump file for the database, e.g. under Linux:

sudo apt-get install postgresql-client-common

Example call:

$ pganonymize --schema=myschema.yml \
    --dbname=test_database \
    --user=username \
    --password=mysecret \
    --host=db.host.example.com \
    --dump-file=/tmp/dump.gz \
    -v

4 Quickstart

Clone repo:

$ git clone git@github.com:rheinwerk-verlag/postgresql-anonymizer.git
$ cd postgresql-anonymizer

For making changes and developing pganonymizer, you need to install poetry:

$ sudo pip install poetry

Now you can install all requirements and activate the virtualenv:

$ poetry install
$ poetry shell

5 Docker

If you want to run the anonymizer within a Docker container you first have to build the image:

$ docker build -t pganonymizer .

After that you can pass a schema file to the container, using Docker volumes, and call the anonymizer:

$ docker run \
    -v <path to your schema>:/schema.yml \
    -it pganonymizer \
    /usr/local/bin/pganonymize \
    --schema=/schema.yml \
    --dbname=<database> \
    --user=<user> \
    --password=<password> \
    --host=<host> \
    -v