DataClassification

This gem is to help with classifying data in your database by adding smart comments to your columns in Rails. This brings the following functionality to your Rails app:

  • a helper to allow migrations to easily add data classifications
  • a generator to create a migration that will add one or more data classifications to columns
  • a rake task to help you audit and set the data classifications for your columns

Installation

Add this line to your application's Gemfile:

gem 'data_classification'

And then execute:

$ bundle install

Or install it yourself as:

$ gem install data_classification

Usage

Migration Helper

One simple helper is available to set the classification on the column level:

include DataClassification::Migrate

add_data_classification 'table_name', 'column_name', 'classification' 

This generates the SQL to add a column. In PostgreSQL, this is equivalent to:

COMMENT ON COLUMN schema.table_name.column_name IS '{"tags":["classification:confidential"]}';

Migration Generator

You can view generators by running bin/rails g. The simple migration generator syntax is as follows:

bin/rails g data_classification <table>:<column>:<classification> <table>:<column>:<classification> ...

This will create a migration similar to the following:

class CreateDataClassificationForArInternalMetadata < ActiveRecord::Migration[5.2]
  include DataClassification::Migration

  def up
    add_data_classification 'ar_internal_metadata', 'key', 'confidential'
  end

  def down
    fail ActiveRecord::IrreversibleMigration
  end
end

Audit Data Classifications

It's tedious to go through and map out the table and column classifications. To help simplify the process, you can use this rake task:

bin/rake data_classification:bulk_classify

This walks through any uncommented table/columns and prompts on how to classify:

Table: users, Column: password
Data classification (public,operational,critical,confidential,personal,personal_sensitive, q(uit), n(ext) >

Development

After checking out the repo, run bin/setup to install dependencies. Then, run rake spec to run the tests. You can also run bin/console for an interactive prompt that will allow you to experiment.

To install this gem onto your local machine, run bundle exec rake install. To release a new version, update the version number in version.rb, and then run bundle exec rake release, which will create a git tag for the version, push git commits and tags, and push the .gem file to rubygems.org.

Contributing

Bug reports and pull requests are welcome on GitHub at https://github.com/Hacker0x01/data_classification. This project is intended to be a safe, welcoming space for collaboration, and contributors are expected to adhere to the code of conduct.

License

The gem is available as open source under the terms of the MIT License.

Code of Conduct

Everyone interacting in the DataClassification project's codebases, issue trackers, chat rooms, and mailing lists is expected to follow the code of conduct.