Private Dump

Private Dump is a CLI tool which can create an anonymised dump of your MySQL database, usually for development or staging use.

It accomplishes this by reading a JSON configuration file which maps out which table columns should be modified and how.

Private Dump requires PHP >= 7.3

Table of Contents

• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration File
  • Key Value Tables
• Replacements
  • Text
  • Dates
  • Internet
  • Random
  • User
  • Payment
  • Company
  • Miscellaneous
  • Barcodes
• Transformers
• Notes
• Dev Steps
• Release Process

Installation

Install with Composer

composer require ashleyhindle/private-dump

Install with curl

curl -Lo private-dump https://github.com/cazana/private-dump/releases/download/v0.1.1/private-dump
chmod a+x private-dump 

Usage

When private-dump is ran with a valid configuration it will output the dump to stdout, allowing you to redirect it to a file, or pipe it to another program (for compression, transfer, encryption, etc..).

First, create a configuration file manually or from an example config, then:

Composer:

• vendor/bin/private-dump.phar -c private-dump.json > /backups/mysql-backup-with-sensitive-data-overwritten.sql

Curl:

• private-dump -c private-dump.json > /backups/mysql-backup-with-sensitive-data-overwritten.sql

You can also override the MySQL username, password and hostname from the command line:

Composer:

vendor/bin/private-dump.phar -c private-dump.json -u bigben -p bingbong -h rds-213121231-13gb.amazon.com > /backups/mysql-backup-with-sensitive-data-overwritten.sql

Curl:

private-dump -c private-dump.json -u bigben -p bingbong -h rds-213121231-13gb.amazon.com > /backups/mysql-backup-with-sensitive-data-overwritten.sql

Note: It's best not to pass the password on the command line as it can be seen in the process list, and will exist in the user's history.

Configuration File

The configuration file is a JSON dictionary containing:

• database connection details
• list of databases to dump
• list of tables with replacements or transformers
  • Seeder - one column can be used as a row-seeder to get repeatability in consecutive dumps
  • keepers - some rows can be kept as is, if a specified column matches a regular expression
  • columns with replacements or transformers
  • options to restrict output
    • where - Added to the query when retrieving data to dump: ... WHERE xxx...
    • limit - Added to the query when retrieving data to dump: ... LIMIT xxx...

An example configuration, and configurations for popular applications, exist in the configs directory.

Annotated Example Configuration - private-dump.json

{
    "connection": { -- Database connection details
        "username": "bigben",
        "password": "bingbong",
        "hostname": "192.168.56.81"
    },
    "databases": { -- Databases to dump - databases not present will not be dumped
        "databaseName": {  -- All tables in this database are dumped
            "tableName": { -- Referenced tables allow replacements
                "email_address": "@email", -- Column and its replacement
                "full_name": "@fullName",
                "is_active": 0, --  Column with hardcoded value
                "$options": { -- Special options array for limit/where
                    "where": "last_login > NOW() - INTERVAL 1 WEEK",
                    "limit": 25
                }
            }
        },
        "databaseTwo": {}, -- Dump entire database and tables, with no replacements
        "databaseThree": {
            "users": {
                "$options": { -- Only options to limit data, no replacements
                    "where": "is_active=1"
                }
            }
        }
        "databaseThree": {
            "users": {
                "@seed": "id", -- Seed each row using user id, to get repeatability
                "@keepif": { -- Keep all rows with emails using domain @ourdomain.com intact
                    "column": "email",
                    "regex": "^.*@ourdomain.com$"
                }
                "first_name": "@user(current_user).firstName",
                "last_name": "@user(current_user).lastName",
                "email": "@user(current_user).email", - email will be based on the first and last names
            }
        }
    }
}

Key Value Tables

Private Dump supports replacing values in a key-value store, by using an array in the configuration file to link the value column with the key column as below:

{
    "connection": {...},
    "databases": {
        "wordpress": {
            "wp_options": {
                "option_value": {
                    "$link": "option_name",
                    "$transformers": {
                        "admin_email": "@email",
                        "mailserver_pass": "@password",
                        "autoload": "yes"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

This is a bit more complicated than the standard replacements, but offers a lot of flexibility for anonymising all types of data.

Replacements

The vast majority of these are made possible by the amazing Faker library. Most formatters listed in Faker's documentation are supported in Private Dump's configuration file

All replacements below should be prefixed with an @ as in the example configuration files.

If you need to use a hardcoded value (active=0, completed=1) you can do this by omitting the @: "active": 0 in the configuration file.

You can pass variables to commands as such @numberBetween|100,1000

Text

• original - The original value, useful to use with modifiers
• string - Random length string up to 255 characters
• realText - Quotes from books
• loremSentence - 1 sentence of Lorem
• loremParagraph - 3 sentences of Lorem
• loremParagraphs - 3 paragraphs of Lorem

Dates

• iso8601 - 2019-01-20
• iso8601Recent - ISO 8601 date in the last 3 months

Internet

• email - bigben@example.com
• url - https://www.parliament.uk/bigben
• ipv4
• ipv6
• userAgent
• domainName - bigben.net
• slug - big-ben-bing-bong

Random

• randomDigit - singular digit
• randomNumber - up to 8 digits
• randomLetter
• randomString - Random length string up to 255 characters

User

• firstName
• lastName
• title - Ms. Mr. Dr.
• fullName - Brian May
• fullAddress - One line: Building number, street, city, state/county, postcode/zip
• buildingNumber - 368
• streetName - Broadway
• streetAddress - 368 Broadway
• city - London
• postcode - SW1A 0AA
• country - England
• state - Texas
• county - London
• latitude - 51.5008
• longitude - -.1246
• phoneNumber
• email - bigben@example.com
• username - BigBen
• password
• url - https://www.parliament.uk/bigben
• ipv4 - IPv4 Address
• ipv6 - IPv6 Address

Payment

• creditCardType - Mastercard
• creditCardNumber - 4444 1111 2222 3333
• creditCardExpirationDate - 04/22
• creditCardExpirationDateString - '04/13'
• iban - BI6B3N8497112740YZ575DJ28BP4
• swiftBicNumber - BIGBEN22263

Company

• company - Company-Name
• jobTitle - Croupier

Miscellaneous

• boolean
• md5
• sha1
• sha256
• countryCode - UK
• currencyCode - EUR

Barcodes

• barcodeEan13
• barcodeEan8
• barcodeIsbn13
• barcodeIsbn10

Transformers

• uppercase
• lowercase

---

These notes are mainly for my own development use, feel free to ignore.

Dev Steps

1. Install Box
2. Modify PHP configuration to set phar.readonly = Off
3. box build
4. chmod a+x bin/private-dump.phar

Release Process

1. Build the PHAR: box build
2. Rename the PHAR: mv bin/private-dump.phar ./private-dump
3. Update the version in README.md's installation instructions based on the next version from git tag --list
4. Tag the next release: git tag -a vx.x.x -m "Release x.x.x"
5. Push: git push origin --tags
6. Edit release on GitHub attaching the newly created bin/private-dump file