DIMP (Pseudonymization)

De-identifies FHIR data using a DIMP service.

What it does

• Sends FHIR Bundles to DIMP service
• Automatically splits large Bundles (>10 MB by default)
• Saves pseudonymized data

Configuration

services:
  dimp:
    url: "http://your-dimp-server:32861"  # server root; /fhir appended by client
    bundle_split_threshold_mb: 10  # 1-100 MB, default: 10
    timeout: 30s                   # timeout of one request, default: 30s
    auth:                          # optional; use one scheme only
      api_key: "${DIMP_API_KEY}"

pipeline:
  enabled_steps:
    - local_import
    - dimp

Configuration Options

Option	Type	Default	Description
url	string	-	DIMP server root URL (required). Do not include /fhir — the client appends it.
bundle_split_threshold_mb	int	10	Split Bundles larger than this (1-100 MB)
timeout	duration	PT30S	Timeout of one pseudonymization request. Increase it for large bundles.
auth.username	string	-	Basic Auth username
auth.password	string	-	Basic Auth password
auth.oauth_issuer_uri	string	-	OAuth 2.0 issuer URI. When set, Aether fetches client-credentials bearer tokens.
auth.oauth_client_id	string	-	OAuth 2.0 client ID
auth.oauth_client_secret	string	-	OAuth 2.0 client secret
auth.api_key	string	-	API key. Sent in its own header, not in Authorization.
auth.api_key_header	string	x-api-key	Header that carries api_key. Change it only for a service or proxy that expects a different header.

Authentication

The auth block is optional. Set it when the DIMP service, or a reverse proxy in front of it, requires credentials. It accepts Basic Auth, OAuth 2.0 client credentials, and an API key.

Basic Auth and OAuth 2.0 both set the Authorization header. Aether refuses a config that sets both. The API key uses its own header, thus you can set it together with Basic Auth or OAuth 2.0. Aether also refuses an incomplete set of fields for one scheme.

Keep credentials out of the config file with environment variables:

export AETHER_SERVICES_DIMP_AUTH_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export AETHER_SERVICES_DIMP_AUTH_PASSWORD="your-password"

Bundle Splitting

Large FHIR Bundles are automatically split to prevent HTTP 413 errors:

• Bundles exceeding the threshold are partitioned into smaller chunks
• Each chunk is sent separately to DIMP
• Results are reassembled after processing
• 100% data preservation during split-reassemble

Output

Pseudonymized files are saved to jobs/<job-id>/dimp/