Using the Fides postman collection

A minimal Postman collection is included to assist in setting up your privacy request configurations, and in executing example access and erasure requests against mock external databases.

Loading the collection

1. Get Postman

2. Postman > File > Import

   

3. Upload the Fides collection found in docs/fides/docs/postman/Fides.postman_collection.json

   

4. Click on the imported fidesops collection in the left pane, and then find Variables to edit the fidesops collection variables.

   • Some variables are populated for you, and some will be added in this guide's next steps.

   

5. Add your oauth_root_client_id and oauth_root_client_secret under CURRENT VALUE.

   • fidesadmin and fidesadminsecret are default configurations for testing, found in your fides.toml. Add the appropriate values for your instance if they differ.
   • Important: Click Save!

   

Bring up local servers and mock databases

1. Run nox -s dev -- <datastore> in your terminal.
   • This brings up the Fides server and the list of datastores specified, i.e. nox -s dev -- postgres mongodb. These mock datastores are pre-populated with test data to represent your datastores.

The following list of requests is kept in the Minimum API calls to create an Access Privacy Request folder. Some of the returned data will need to be saved as additional variables for use in other steps.

Saving Authentication variables

1. Click on the Get Root Client Token request, and click Send to send a POST request to Fides to create a root token.

   

2. Copy the access_token returned in the response body, and paste it as the Current Value of root_client_token in Fides' variables.

   • Important: Click Save!

   

3. Similarly, click on Create Client, and click Send to send a POST request to Fides to create a new client.

   • Copy the client_id and client_secret and paste into Current Value slots in Fides variables and click "Save".

4. Finally, click on the Get Client Token request, and click Send to send another POST request to Fides. This will create a token for the client made in the previous step.

   

   • If you click on Body, you can see that the client_id and client_secret have been added as form data for you.

5. Save the returned token under client_token in the Fides variables. The client_token will be automatically passed into the rest of your requests as the Bearer Token.

   

Building out remaining privacy request configuration

Run through the remaining requests in the Minimum API calls to create an Access Privacy Request folder. Because variables are automatically being populated for you, you should be able to click on each request, clicking Send for each one.

Inspect the Body of each request to see what is sent to Fides:

1. Specify where your data is going:
   1. SEND Create/Update Storage - Local Storage Config - Sets up a local folder for uploading your privacy request results (local testing only)
2. Configure what data you care about, and what to do with it:
   1. SEND Create/Update Policies - Creates a Policy to handle Privacy Requests
   2. SEND Create/Update Access Rule - Defines an access Rule on the previous Policy, which specifies results will be uploaded to the configured local storage
   3. SEND Create/Update Rule Targets - Specify a RuleTarget that says to will return data that has been marked as having a user data category
3. Create ConnectionConfigs, and add connection secrets for the postgres_example and mongodb_example mock databases:
   1. SEND Create/Update Connection Configs: Postgres
   2. SEND Create/Update Connection Configs: Mongo
   3. SEND Update Connection Secrets: Postgres
   4. SEND Update Connection Secrets: Mongo
4. Add annotations of the Postgres and Mongo datastores:
   1. SEND Create/Update Postgres Dataset
   2. SEND Create/Update Dataset Mongo

API calls to additional supported datastores (MsSQL, MySQL) are in separate folders within the collection.

Run a privacy request

You have now completed the basic configuration required to create an Access Request.

1. SEND Create Access Privacy Requests

   • If "succeeded", note the "id" that is returned. Succeeded means the privacy request has been created and is pending, not that its execution is complete.

   

2. Check your local fides_uploads folder, configured earlier, to see access request results.

   • This is run asynchronously, so it may take a few moments to complete. This particular request should have retrieved data from both the postgres_example and mongodb_example databases with the user data_category

   

Next steps

1. Check out other requests in the collection!
   • The Calls to create an Erasure Request folder walks you through configuring a separate erasure policy, and executing an erasure request.

Note that these erasure requests will mask data in your connected datastores (postgres_example and mongo_example here. If you connect your own live databases, data may be deleted.

Happy experimenting!