PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#1

Post by chynkm » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 7:36 AM UTC

PostgreSQL Anonymizer
postgresql-anonymizer.readthedocs.io

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#2

Post by sgt » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:08 AM UTC

Just be careful that you don't anonymize your production data.

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#3

Post by go_prodev » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:18 AM UTC

sgt wrote: post #2

Just be careful that you don't anonymize your production data.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#4

Post by lovasoa » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 8:59 AM UTC

sgt wrote: post #2

Just be careful that you don't anonymize your production data.

The principle of the software seems to be that the original data is never altered. It is a postgres extension that "masks" the data for certain postgres users. You can always connect as the root user and see everything when you need to.

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#5

Post by dandiep » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:15 AM UTC

This is a fantastic idea. Now how to get it on RDS…

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#6

Post by antman » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:45 AM UTC

sgt wrote: post #2

Just be careful that you don't anonymize your production data.

Masking is for view for specific users

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#7

Post by zdc1 » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 9:53 AM UTC

dandiep wrote: post #5

This is a fantastic idea. Now how to get it on RDS…

Assuming if it's for a support team or internal users with a lower SLA, I wonder if it's possible to have a small self-hosted PostgreSQL server that basically acts as a shim by holding a foreign-data wrapper connection to the actual RDS instance

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#8

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 10:14 AM UTC

zdc1 wrote: post #7

dandiep wrote: post #5

This is a fantastic idea. Now how to get it on RDS…

Assuming if it's for a support team or internal users with a lower SLA, I wonder if it's possible to have a small self-hosted PostgreSQL server that basically acts as a shim by holding a foreign-data wrapper connection to the actual RDS instance

[deleted]

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#9

Post by willgdjones » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 10:15 AM UTC

dandiep wrote: post #5

This is a fantastic idea. Now how to get it on RDS…

+1 for RDS support. I have wanted to use this for a while in our production systems. reply

Re: PostgreSQL Anonymizer

#10

Post by riffraff » Fri, Jan 17, 2025, 10:29 AM UTC

this seems great. I wonder tho, how do you ensure new columns are masked by default? It seems a safer alternative would be to start with all columns being statically masked and only unveil them selectively.

I guess you can add some CI steps when modifying the db to ensure a give column is allowed or masked, but still, would be nice if this was defaulted the other way around.