Philter Quick Start on Microsoft Azure
Philter on Microsoft Azure runs on its own virtual machine in your Azure subscription, launched from Azure Marketplace. A free trial period is available during which there is no charge for the Philter software, but there may be charges for the underlying Azure infrastructure.
The step-by-step quick start is Philter on Azure: quick start. It covers launching Philter, reading its API key over SSH, redacting your first text, and creating a key for your application. This page is the reference for the marketplace virtual machine.
Cloud virtual machines launched from a cloud marketplace may not be immediately suitable for a HIPAA environment. Refer to your compliance officer for your organization's requirements to ensure compliance with all relevant regulations.
At a glance
| Recommended size | Standard_F4s_v2 (4 vCPUs, 8 GB of RAM). Smaller sizes are intended only for testing. See System Requirements. |
| Operating system | Ubuntu 26.04 |
| Ports | 22 (SSH) and 8080 (Philter's API). The listing opens both; restrict them to specific CIDR ranges. |
| SSH | The administrator username and SSH key chosen when creating the virtual machine |
| Keys | Generated on first boot into /opt/philter/.env, readable only by root |
| API | HTTPS on port 8080 with a self-signed certificate |
Keys
Philter has no user interface; it is administered through its API. It requires two values, which the virtual machine generates on its first boot and keeps in /opt/philter/.env. Every virtual machine launched from the image gets its own. Read them over SSH with sudo cat /opt/philter/.env.
PHILTER_ENCRYPTION_KEYencrypts sensitive data at rest. Back it up, and do not change it for the life of the deployment: data encrypted with it cannot be recovered if it is lost or changed. See Encryption.PHILTER_BOOTSTRAP_API_KEYis the first API key. Philter seeds it onto theadminuser with every scope. See bootstrap settings.
For applications, create keys holding only the scopes they need, such as redact, with POST /api/api-keys. To retire the bootstrap key, create a replacement administrator key holding every scope, then revoke the bootstrap key with the replacement: a key cannot revoke itself or a key holding scopes it lacks. Philter UI, a separate web application in development, is being built to sign people in through Philter with their own username and password once PASSWORD_SIGN_IN_ENABLED is set; see Sign-in Security.
Where your data is stored
Philter on the marketplace image stores its data, including policies, contexts, the redaction ledger, and the audit log, in a SQLite database on the virtual machine's disk. No database server runs beside it. Back up the disk regularly, or back up the database with SQLite's online backup as described in Database, and keep PHILTER_ENCRYPTION_KEY with the backups, since the data cannot be read without it. One virtual machine runs one Philter; to run several instances behind a load balancer, use MongoDB storage as described in High Availability, and move the existing data to it with the migrate-storage command as described in Moving from SQLite to MongoDB.
TLS
Philter serves HTTPS on port 8080 with a self-signed certificate, so clients must skip verification (curl -k) until it is replaced. Replace it with a certificate owned by your organization before production use. See TLS.