EVL Data Anonymization Trial
Installation and Configuration Guide

Overview

EVL Data 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 Data 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 Data Anonymization installation, creating a sample project, generation of EVL jobs, and finally anonymizing sample data.

Installation

Linux &nsash; RPM

For CentOS 8 firstly install required packages from powertools repo:

sudo dnf -y install dnf-plugins-core
sudo dnf config-manager --set-enabled powertools
sudo dnf install --enablerepo=powertools snappy-devel

Get the package for your OS from https://www.evltool.com/downloads and

tar xvf evl-data-anonymization-trial.*.rpm.tar
sudo dnf install ./evl-common-2.5*.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install ./evl-core-2.5*.x86_64.rpm
sudo dnf install ./evl-data-anonymization-2.5*.x86_64.rpm

Then initiate the installation for current user by

/opt/EVL-2.5/bin/evl init

Linux – DEB

Get the package from https://www.evltool.com/downloads and

tar xvf evl-data-anonymization-trial.ubuntu.deb.tar
sudo apt install ./evl-common_2.5*_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./evl-core_2.5*_amd64.deb
sudo apt install ./evl-data-anonymization_2.5*_amd64.deb

Then initiate the installation for current user by

/opt/EVL-2.5/bin/evl init

MS Windows – Ubuntu

EVL Data 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

Generate anonymization jobs from the config file

Run the anonymization jobs that were generated.

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

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

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

Perform a syntax check of the configuration file

Generate anonymization jobs

Run anonymization jobs