Quick Start Guide

EVL Anonymization Trial
Installation and Configuration Guide

Overview

EVL Anonymization is designed to protect/anonymize commercial data and personally identifiable information. It's part of the EVL family of data tools and is suitable for large scale data workflows. EVL Anonymization uses spreadsheet style config files to easily create regular EVL jobs which then can be used to process data immediately, be run as scheduled jobs, or integrated into larger data workflows.

This guide will step through: EVL Anonymization installation, creating a sample project, generation of EVL jobs, and finally anonymizing sample data.

Installation

Linux - RPM

Red Hat family operating systems: Fedora, CentOS, Red Hat, Oracle Linux, etc. Installing EVL anonymization
  1. sudo dnf install evl-anonymization-trial-1.1-2.static.x86_64.rpm
  2. /opt/EVL-Anonymization-1.1/bin/evl init

Linux - DEB

Debian-based operating systems: Ubuntu, Debian, etc.
Installing EVL anonymization
  1. sudo apt install ./evl-anonymization-trial_1.1-2.static_amd64.deb
  2. /opt/EVL-Anonymization-1.1/bin/evl init

MS Windows - Ubuntu

EVL Tool Anonymization does not have a native distribution for Microsoft Windows, it runs on windows installations using Microsoft's WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux). Although Anonymization runs on WSL, all data and configuration files can be accessed and edited using typical Windows tools like File Explorer, Excel, etc.

Install WSL and enable it in the system. Then install Ubuntu 18.04 from Microsoft Store. Check this web page for detailed WSL and Ubuntu instructions:

https://www.windowscentral.com/install-windows-subsystem-linux-windows-10

Once complete, follow the Linux (DEB) installation instructions

Example

For this example we will anonymize the data of two csv files (addresses.csv, customers.csv) according to the configuration specified in sample_source.csv.

Creating and running a sample project

Create a sample project using a built in evl command

evl anon project sample anon-sample
cd anon-sample

Generate anonymization jobs from the config file

evl anon build configs/sample_source.csv

Run the anonoimization jobs that were generated.

evl run/anon/sample_source.addresses.evl
evl run/anon/sample_source.customers.evl

Directory structure

Use the Tree command to get a hierarchical list of directories. Most directories contain internal functions of anonymization software. To test the behavior of anonymization, change:

  • configuration file sample_source.csv in the configs directory
  • the data files addresses.csv and customers.csv in the data / source directory

Configuring anonymization functions

Try editing individual anonymization functions:

  • In the file anon-sample /configs/sample/source.csv and change the values ​​in the anon_type or evl_value column. For greater convenience, you can use the option to edit the configuration file in Excel with the implemented list_of_values.
  • Once complete, generate new jobs:
    evl anon build configs/sample_source.csv
  • Run the newly generated anonymization jobs
    evl run/anon/sample_source.addresses.evl
    evl run/anon/sample_source.customers.evl
  • Review changes in anonymized files addresses.csv and customers.csv in the data /source/anon directory

Creating your own project

Use the EVL command to create a new project. Substitute your own project name at <project> a new directory with this name will be created

evl anon project new <project>

move into the new project folder and create directories for an anonymization project

cd <project>
mkdir data/source
mkdir data/anon

Copy your data source files into <project>/data/source. To avoid setting special parameters the files should have these features:

  • suffix: csv
  • headers on the first line
  • delimiter ";"

Generate the standard configuration file

evl anon source new <project> --guess-from-csv data/source

Perform a syntax check of the configuration file

evl anon check configs/<project>.csv

Generate anonymization jobs

evl anon build configs/<project>.csv

Run anonymization jobs

evl run/anon/<evljob> where <evljob> is the name of the file with the suffix evl generated in run/anon directory

FAQ

How to set parameters when editing data in Windows environments?

Column separator configuration CSV files can be set with the variable EVL_CONFIG_FIELD_SEPARATOR, column separator anonymous data and variable EVL_DEFAULT_FIELD_SEPARATOR. Starting separators are semicolons.

For Windows line breaks, then you can set the variable EVL_ANON_EOL = "dos". All of these variables can be set in the project.sh config file

How to uninstall EVL Anonymization?

DEB: sudo apt remove evl-anonymization-trial
RPM: sudo dnf remove evl-anonymization-trial

Standard behavior is to append output files rather than create new files. How do I change this?

Add or change the line EVL_ANON_APPEND = 1 to EVL_ANON_APPEND = 0 in the project.sh file to change the behavior project wide. Make the edit in any anon/<job name>.sh file to change the behavior for specific jobs.

How to work properly with Windows line breaks?

By default, Linux line breaks for input files are assumed, ie “\n”. Setting EVL_ANON_EOL = "dos" can be set to Windows line breaks, ie "\r \n", in configs anon.*.sh file, or in project.sh.

How do I check if the configuration file syntax is correct?

Run the command:

evl anon check <config_file>
evl anon check configs/sample_source.csv

What about installation errors?

In most cases, updating and running the installation again fixes the problem

DEB: sudo apt-get update
RPM: sudo dnf upgrade