Base
Hardened build
minimal ports, security patches applied at build time
PostgreSQL 18 with PostgreSQL Anonymizer on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
Azure
Databases
PostgreSQL with PostgreSQL Anonymizer, an open source extension that masks personal data inside the database engine.
Overview
This appliance pairs the PostgreSQL relational database with PostgreSQL Anonymizer, the extension from Dalibo that implements data masking inside the engine itself. You declare in SQL which columns hold personal data and how each should be disguised, and PostgreSQL enforces those rules at query time. Because the masking lives in the database rather than in an application, it cannot be sidestepped by writing a different query, and there is no second sanitised copy to create and keep in sync.
Three modes work together. Dynamic masking lets a role you mark as masked see anonymized values in real time while the table owner still sees the originals, leaving stored data untouched. Static anonymization permanently rewrites the stored values to produce a genuinely sanitised dataset. Synthetic data generation supplies realistic substitutes, so a masked email is a plausible email and a masked name a plausible name, with column types, row counts and keys preserved so joins and application code keep working.
Why the cloudimg image
cloudimg ships the extension already installed, preloaded and initialised, with a demonstration database of realistic personal data, a full set of masking rules and a ready made masked role, so you can compare the owner view against the masked view within a minute of first boot. There is no default password to change: on first boot each instance mints its own database passwords and its own TLS certificate into a file only the root user can read, and remote connections are accepted only over TLS. A credential guard runs on every boot and stops the database rather than serve a credential that appears in any published example. The paired deployment guide walks through both masking modes, and every instance carries 24/7 support.
Common uses
- Giving analysts, contractors and support staff production shaped data without exposing personal data
- Producing sanitised datasets for development, test and demo environments
- Meeting data protection obligations by masking personal data at the database layer