netreconlab/parse-hipaa repository overview

⁠parse-hipaa

Run your own HIPAA & GDPR compliant parse-server⁠ with PostgreSQL⁠ or MongoDB⁠. parse-hipaa also includes parse-dashboard⁠ for viewing/modifying your data in the Cloud. Since parse-hipaa⁠ is a pare-server, it can be used for iOS⁠, Android⁠, Flutter⁠, and web based apps (JS, React Native, etc⁠). API's such as GraphQL⁠ and REST⁠ are enabled by default in parse-hipaa and can be tested directly or via the "API Console" in the Parse Dashboard. See the Parse SDK documentation⁠ for details and examples of how to leverage parse-hipaa for your language(s) of interest. parse-hipaa includes the necessary database auditing and logging for HIPAA compliance.

parse-hipaa provides the following:

• Auditing & logging at server-admin level (Parse) and at the database level (postgres or mongo)
• The User class (and the ParseCareKit classes if you are using them) are locked down and doesn't allow unauthenticated access (the standard parse-server allows unauthenticated read access by default)
• The creation of new Parse Classes and the addition of adding fields from the client-side are disabled. These can be created/added on the server-side using Parse Dashboard (the standard parse-server allows Class and field creation on the client-side by default)
• Ready for encryption in transit - parse-hipaa and it's companion images are setup to run behind a proxy with files & directions on how to complete the process⁠ with Nginx and LetsEncrypt
• File uploads are only allowed by authenticated users (the standard parse-server allows unauthenticated uploads by default)
• File uploads are encrypted with AES-256-GCM by default (the standard parse-server doesn't encrypt files by default)
• File uploads can be scanned for viruses and malware by clamav⁠ before they are saved to parse-hipaa local storage. If any virus or malware is detected the files won't be persisted to the file system (this has been turned off by default). Examples of how to handle can be found in files.js⁠ and enabled in main.js⁠)

You will still need to setup the following on your own to be fully HIPAA & GDPR compliant:

• Encryption in transit - you will need to complete the process⁠
• Encryption at rest - Mount to your own encrypted storage drive for your database (Linux and macOS have API's for this) and store the drive in a "safe" location
• Be sure to do anything else HIPAA & GDPR requires
• If you are hosting using a remote service like Heroku, you may need to pay for additional services such as Shield Spaces⁠

The CareKitSample-ParseCareKit⁠, uses parse-hipaa along with ParseCareKit⁠.

Use at your own risk. There is not promise that this is HIPAA compliant and we are not responsible for any mishandling of your data

⁠What is inside parse-hipaa?

Parse-HIPAA is derived from the parse-server image⁠ and contains the following additional packages:

• parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠
• parse-server-carekit⁠
• clamscan⁠
• newrelic⁠ - automatically configured with Heroku deployments, needs additional configuration if you want to use elsewhere
• parse-server-any-analytics-adapter⁠ - needs additional configuration if you want to use
• @analytics/google-analytics⁠ - needs additional configuration if you want to use
• @analytics/google-analytics-v3⁠ - needs additional configuration if you want to use
• @parse/s3-files-adapter⁠ - needs additional configuration if you want to use
• parse-server-api-mail-adapter⁠ - needs additional configuration if you want to use
• mailgun.js⁠ - needs additional configuration if you want to use

⁠Images

Images of parse-hipaa are automatically built for your convenience. Images can be found at the following locations:

• Docker - Hosted on Docker Hub⁠
• Singularity - Hosted on GitHub Container Registry⁠

⁠Flavors and Tags

⁠Production

• latest - Points to the newest released version. This is smallest possible image of parse-hipaa and it does not contain parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠
• x.x.x - Points to a specific released version. These version numbers match their respective parse-server⁠ released versions. This is smallest possible image of parse-hipaa and it does not contain parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠
• x.x.x-dashboard - Points to a specific released version. These version numbers match their respective parse-server⁠ released versions. This version of parse-hipaa is built with parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠ and is a larger image

⁠Development

• main - Points to the most up-to-date code and depends on the latest release of parse-server. This version of parse-hipaa is built with parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠. This tag can contain breaking changes
• x.x.x-alpha/beta - Points to most up-to-date code and depends on the respective alha/beta releases of parse-server⁠. This version of parse-hipaa is built with parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠. This tag can contain breaking changes

⁠Recommendations

Any/all of the tagged servers can be used in combination with each other to build a High Availability⁠(HA) server-side application. For example, your HA cluster may consist of: (1) nginx⁠ reverse proxy/load balancer, (1) x.x.x-dashboard parse-hipaa server, (2) x.x.x parse-hipaa servers, and (1) Percona Monitor and Management⁠ server.

⁠Standard (without parse-hipaa-dashboard)

• latest or x.x.x - Use one or more of these images if you plan to have multiple parse-hipaa servers working together to create HA⁠ or just need a stand-alone server. Note that if all of your parse-hipaa servers are x.x.x, you may want to add a stand-alone parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠ or parse-server-dashoard⁠
  • See docker-compose.yml⁠ for an example
• -dashboard - Use one of these images only if you plan to have one stand-alone parse-hipaa server or you want one of your servers to also provide parse-hipaa-dashboard⁠ ability
  • See docker-compose-dashboard.yml⁠ for an example
• main or x.x.x-alpha/beta - Use only as a development server for testing/debugging the latest features. It is recommended not to use these tags for deployed systems

⁠Deployment

parse-hipaa can be easily deployed or tested remote or locally.

⁠Remote

⁠Heroku

You can use the one-button-click deployment to quickly deploy to Heroko. Note that this is non-HIPAA compliant when using Heroku's free services, so you need to view Heroku's compliance certifications⁠, and upgrade your plans to Shield Spaces⁠. You can view this document for detailed instuctions⁠. If you need a Parse Server Heroku deployment for non-ParseCareKit based apps, use the Heroku button on the snapcat⁠ branch instead of this one. Once you click the Heroku button do the following:

1. Select your App name
2. Under the Config vars section, fill in the following environment variables:
   • Set the value for NEW_RELIC_APP_NAME to the App name in step 1
   • Add a value for PARSE_DASHBOARD_USER_ID so you can log into your Parse Dashboard
   • Add the hash of your password as the value for PARSE_DASHBOARD_USER_PASSWORD so you can log into your Parse Dashboard. You can get the hash of your desired password from bcrypt-generator.com⁠
   • You can leave all other Config vars as they are or modify them as needed
3. If you don't plan on using parse-hipaa with ParseCareKit you should set PARSE_SERVER_USING_PARSECAREKIT=false under Config vars. This will ensure that ParseCareKit classes/tables are not created on the parse-hipaa server
4. Scroll to the bottom of the page and press Deploy app
5. When finished you can access your respective server and dashboard by visiting https://YOUR_APP_NAME.herokuapp.com/parse⁠ or https://YOUR_APP_NAME.herokuapp.com/dashboard⁠. The mount points are based on PARSE_SERVER_MOUNT_PATH and PARSE_DASHBOARD_MOUNT_PATH
6. Be sure to go to Settings->Reveal Config Vars to get your PARSE_SERVER_APPLICATION_ID. Add the PARSE_SERVER_APPLICATION_ID and https://YOUR_APP_NAME.herokuapp.com/parse⁠ as applicationId and serverURL respectively to your client app to connect your parse-hipaa server

⁠Using your own files for Heroku deployment

1. Fork the the parse-hipaa repo
2. Edit heroku.yml in your repo by changing parse/Dockerfile.heroku to parse/Dockerfile. This will build from your respective repo instead of using the pre-built docker image
3. You can now edit parse/index.js and parse/cloud as you wish
4. You can then follow the directions on heroku's site for deployment⁠ and integration⁠

⁠Local: Using Docker Image with Postgres or Mongo

By default, the docker-compose.yml uses hipaa-postgres⁠. The the docker-compose.mongo.yml uses hipaa-mongo⁠.

⁠Postgres

To use the Postgres HIPAA compliant variant of parse-hipaa, simply type:

docker-compose up

⁠Mongo

To use the Mongo HIPAA compliant variant of parse-hipaa, simply type:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.mongo.yml up

⁠Postgres (Non-HIPAA Compliant)

If you would like to use a non-HIPAA compliant postgres version:

docker-compose -f docker-compose.no.hipaa.yml up

⁠Mongo (Non-HIPAA Compliant)

A non-HIPAA compliant mongo version isn't provided as this is the default parse-server⁠ deployment and many examples of how to set this up already exist.

⁠Getting started

parse-hipaa is made up of four (4) seperate docker images (you use 3 of them at a time) that work together as one system. It's important to set the environment variables for your parse-hipaa server.

⁠Environment Variables

For a complete list of enviroment variables, look at app.json⁠.

⁠netreconlab/parse-hipaa

PARSE_SERVER_APPLICATION_ID # Unique string value
PARSE_SERVER_PRIMARY_KEY # Unique string value
PARSE_SERVER_READ_ONLY_PRIMARY_KEY # Unique string value
PARSE_SERVER_ENCRYPTION_KEY # Unique string used for encrypting files stored by parse-hipaa
PARSE_SERVER_OBJECT_ID_SIZE # Integer value, parse defaults to 10, 32 is probably better for medical apps and large tables
PARSE_SERVER_DATABASE_URI # URI to connect to parse-hipaa. postgres://${PG_PARSE_USER}:${PG_PARSE_PASSWORD}@db:5432/${PG_PARSE_DB} or mongodb://${MONGO_PARSE_USER}:${MONGO_PARSE_PASSWORD}@db:27017/${MONGO_PARSE_DB}
PORT # Port for parse-hipaa, default is 1337
PARSE_SERVER_MOUNT_PATH: # Mounting path for parse-hipaa, default is /parse
PARSE_SERVER_URL # Server URL, default is http://parse:${PORT}/parse
PARSE_SERVER_PUBLIC_URL # Public Server URL, default is http://localhost:${PORT}/parse
PARSE_SERVER_CLOUD # Path to cloud code, default is /parse/cloud/main.js
PARSE_SERVER_MOUNT_GRAPHQL # Enable graphql, default is 'true'
PARSE_SET_USER_CLP # Set the Class Level Permissios of the _User schema so only authenticated users can access, default 1
PARSE_SERVER_ALLOW_CLIENT_CLASS_CREATION # String value of 'false' or 'true'. Prohibits class creation on the client side. Classes can still be created using Parse Dashboard by `useMasterKey`, default 'false'
PARSE_SERVER_ALLOW_CUSTOM_OBJECTID # Required to be true for ParseCareKit
PARSE_SERVER_ENABLE_SCHEMA_HOOKS # Keeps the schema in sync across all instances
PARSE_SERVER_DIRECT_ACCESS # Known to cause crashes when true on single instance of server and not behind public server
PARSE_SERVER_ENABLE_PRIVATE_USERS # Set to 'true' if new users should be created without public read and write access
PARSE_SERVER_USING_PARSECAREKIT # If you are not using ParseCareKit, set this to 'false', or else enable with 'true'. The default value is 'true'
PARSE_VERBOSE # Enable verbose output on the server
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: # Needed for wait-for-postgres.sh. Should be the same as POSTGRES_PASSWORD in netreconlab/hipaa-postgres

⁠netreconlab/hipaa-postgres

POSTGRES_PASSWORD # Password for postgress db cluster
PG_PARSE_USER # Username for logging into PG_PARSE_DB
PG_PARSE_PASSWORD # Password for logging into PG_PARSE_DB
PG_PARSE_DB # Name of parse-hipaa database

⁠netreconlab/hipaa-mongo

# Warning, if you want to make changes to the vars below they need to be changed manually in /scripts/mongo-init.js as the env vars are not passed to the script
MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_USERNAME # Username for mongo db. Username for logging into mongo db for parse-hipaa.
MONGO_INITDB_ROOT_PASSWORD # Password for mongo db. Password for logging into mongo db for parse-hipaa.
MONGO_INITDB_DATABASE # Name of mongo db for parse-hipaa

⁠netreconlab/parse-hipaa-dashboard

PARSE_DASHBOARD_TRUST_PROXY: # Set this to 1 (or anything) if the dashboard is behind a proxy. Otherwise leave empty
PARSE_DASHBOARD_ALLOW_INSECURE_HTTP: # Set this to 1 (or anything) if not behind proxy and using the dashboard in docker. Note that either PARSE_DASHBOARD_ALLOW_INSECURE_HTTP or PARSE_DASHBOARD_TRUST_PROXY should be set at the same time, choose one or the other. Otherwise leave empty
PARSE_DASHBOARD_COOKIE_SESSION_SECRET: # Unique string. This should be constant across all deployments on your system
PARSE_DASHBOARD_MOUNT_PATH: # The default is "/dashboard". This needs to be exactly what you plan it to be behind the proxy, i.e. If you want to access cs.uky.edu/dashboard it should be "/dashboard"

⁠parseplatform/parse-dashboard

PARSE_DASHBOARD_TRUST_PROXY: # Set this to 1 (or anything) if the dashboard is behind a proxy. Otherwise leave empty
PARSE_DASHBOARD_ALLOW_INSECURE_HTTP: # Set this to 1 (or anything) if not behind proxy and using the dashboard in docker. Note that either PARSE_DASHBOARD_ALLOW_INSECURE_HTTP or PARSE_DASHBOARD_TRUST_PROXY should be set at the same time, choose one or the other. Otherwise leave empty
PARSE_DASHBOARD_COOKIE_SESSION_SECRET: # Unique string. This should be constant across all deployments on your system
MOUNT_PATH: # The default is "/dashboard". This needs to be exactly what you plan it to be behind the proxy, i.e. If you want to access cs.uky.edu/dashboard it should be "/dashboard"

⁠Starting up parse-hipaa

• For the default HIPAA compliant postgres version: docker-compose up
• or for the HIPAA compliant mongo version: docker-compose -f docker-compose.mongo.yml up
• or for the non-HIPAA compliant postgres version: docker-compose -f docker-compose.no.hipaa.yml up
• A non-HIPAA compliant mongo version isn't provided in this repo as that's just a standard parse-server

Imporant Note: On the very first run, the "parse-server"(which will show up as "parse_1" in the console) will sleep and error a few times because it can't connect to postgres (the "db") container. This is suppose to happen and is due to postgres needing to configure and initialize, install the necessary extensions, and setup it's databases. Let it keep running and eventually you will see something like:

db_1         | PostgreSQL init process complete; ready for start up.

The parse-server container will automatically keep attempting to connect to the postgres container and when it's connected you will see:

parse_1      | parse-server running on port 1337.
parse_1      | publicServerURL: http://localhost:1337/parse, serverURL: http://parse:1337/parse
parse_1      | GraphQL API running on http://localhost:1337/parsegraphql
parse_1      | info: Parse LiveQuery Server starts running

You may also see output such as the following in the console or log files:

db_1         | 2020-03-18 21:59:21.550 UTC [105] ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "pg_type_typname_nsp_index"
db_1         | 2020-03-18 21:59:21.550 UTC [105] DETAIL:  Key (typname, typnamespace)=(_SCHEMA, 2200) already exists.
db_1         | 2020-03-18 21:59:21.550 UTC [105] STATEMENT:  CREATE TABLE IF NOT EXISTS "_SCHEMA" ( "className" varChar(120), "schema" jsonb, "isParseClass" bool, PRIMARY KEY ("className") )
db_1         | 2020-03-18 21:59:21.550 UTC [106] ERROR:  duplicate key value violates unique constraint "pg_type_typname_nsp_index"
...

The lines above are console output from parse because they attempt to check and configure the postgres database if necessary. They doesn't hurt or slow down your parse-hipaa server.

⁠Local: Using Singularity Image with Postgres

There are equivalent Singularity⁠ images that can be configured in a similar fashion to Docker. The singularity images are hosted on GitHub Container Registry and can be found here⁠. An example of of how to use this image can be found in singularity-compose.yml⁠.

⁠Parse Server

Your parse-server is binded to all of your interfaces on port 1337/parse and be can be accessed as such, e.g. http://localhost:1337/parse.

The standard configuration can be modified to your liking by editing index.js⁠. Here you can add/modify things like push notifications, password resets, adapters⁠, etc. This file as an express app and some examples provided from parse can be found here⁠. Note that there is no need to rebuild your image when modifying files in the "index.js" file since it is volume mounted, but you will need to restart the parse container for your changes to take effect.

⁠Configuring

Default values for environment variables: PARSE_SERVER_APPLICATION_ID and PARSE_SERVER_PRIMARY_KEY are provided in docker-compose.yml⁠ for quick local deployment. If you plan on using this image to deploy in production, you should definitely change both values. Environment variables, PARSE_SERVER_DATABASE_URI, PARSE_SERVER_URL, PORT, PARSE_SERVER_PUBLIC_URL, PARSE_SERVER_CLOUD, and PARSE_SERVER_MOUNT_GRAPHQL should not be changed unles you are confident with configuring parse-server or else you image may not work properly. In particular, changing PORT should only be done in .env⁠ and will also require you to change the port manually in the parse-dashboard-config.json⁠ for both "serverURL" and "graphQLServerURL" to have the Parse Dashboard work correctly.

⁠Running in production for ParseCareKit

If you are plan on using parse-hipaa in production. You should run the additional scripts to create the rest of the indexes for optimized queries.

⁠Postgres

If you are using hipaa_postgres, the setup-parse-index.sh is already in the container. You just have to run it.

1. Log into your docker container, type: docker exec -u postgres -ti parse-hipaa_db_1 bash
2. Run the script, type: ./usr/local/bin/setup-parse-index.h

If you are using your own postgres image, you should copy setup-parse-index.sh⁠ to your container and complete the login and run steps above (be sure to switch parse-hipaa_db_1 to your actual running container name on your system).

More information about configuring can be found on hipaa-postgres⁠.

⁠Idempotency

You most likely want to enable Idempotency. Read more about how to configure on Parse Server⁠. For Postgres, you can setup a cron⁠ or scheduler to run parse_idempotency_delete_expired_records.sh⁠ at a desired frequency to remove stale data.

⁠Mongo

Information about configuring can be found on hipaa-mongo⁠.

⁠Idempotency

You most likely want to enable Idempotency. Read more about how to configure on Parse Server⁠. For Postgres, you can setup a cron⁠ or scheduler to run [parse_idempotency_delete_expired_records.sh](https://github.com/netreconl⁠