GitHub Enterprise guides

Accounts Authentication Enterprise Identity

You can change the way GitHub Enterprise Server authenticates with your existing accounts at any time.

Using CAS

Accounts Authentication Enterprise Identity SSO

CAS is a single sign-on (SSO) protocol for multiple web applications. A CAS user account does not take up a user license until the user signs in.

LDAP lets you authenticate GitHub Enterprise Server against your existing accounts and centrally manage repository access. LDAP is a popular application protocol for accessing and maintaining directory information services, and is one of the most common protocols used to integrate third-party software with large company user directories.

Accounts Authentication Enterprise Identity

Using SAML

Accounts Authentication Enterprise Identity SSO

SAML is an XML-based standard for authentication and authorization. GitHub Enterprise Server can act as a service provider (SP) with your internal SAML identity provider (IdP).

Accessing the administrative shell (SSH)

Enterprise Fundamentals SSH

SSH access allows you to run the GitHub Enterprise Server command line utilities to troubleshoot, run backups, and configure replication.

Accessing the management console

You can use the Management Console to manage virtual appliance settings such as the domain, authentication, and SSL.

Enterprise Fundamentals

Configuring a hostname

Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure

We recommend setting a hostname for your appliance instead of using a hard-coded IP address.

Configuring backups on your appliance

Backups Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure

As part of a disaster recovery plan, you can protect production data on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance by configuring automated backups.

Configuring built-in firewall rules

Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure Networking

You can view default firewall rules and customize rules for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

Configuring code scanning for your appliance

Advanced Security Code scanning Enterprise Security

You can enable, configure and disable code scanning for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. Code scanning allows users to scan code for vulnerabilities and errors.

Configuring DNS nameservers

Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure Networking

GitHub Enterprise Server uses the dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) for DNS settings when DHCP leases provide nameservers. If nameservers are not provided by a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) lease, or if you need to use specific DNS settings, you can specify the nameservers manually.

Configuring rate limits

Enterprise Infrastructure Performance

You can set rate limits for GitHub Enterprise Server using the Management Console.

Configuring secret scanning for your appliance

Advanced Security Enterprise Secret scanning Security

You can enable, configure, and disable secret scanning for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. Secret scanning allows users to scan code for accidentally committed secrets.

Configuring TLS

Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure Networking Security

You can configure Transport Layer Security (TLS) on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance so that you can use a certificate that is signed by a trusted certificate authority.

Connecting GitHub Enterprise Server to GitHub Enterprise Cloud

Enterprise GitHub Connect Infrastructure Networking

After you enable GitHub Connect, you can share specific features and workflows between your GitHub Enterprise Server instance and GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode

Enterprise Fundamentals Maintenance Upgrades

Some standard maintenance procedures, such as upgrading your GitHub Enterprise Server instance or restoring backups, require the instance to be taken offline for normal use.

Enabling automatic user license sync between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud

Enterprise GitHub Connect Licensing

You can connect your GitHub Enterprise Server instance to GitHub Enterprise Cloud and allow GitHub Enterprise Server to upload user license information to your enterprise account on GitHub.com.

Enabling private mode

Access management Authentication Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure Networking Privacy Security

In private mode, GitHub Enterprise Server requires every user to sign in to access the installation.

Enabling subdomain isolation

Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure Networking Security

You can set up subdomain isolation to securely separate user-supplied content from other portions of your GitHub Enterprise Server appliance.

Enabling unified contributions between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub.com

Enterprise GitHub Connect

After enabling GitHub Connect, you can allow GitHub Enterprise Cloud members to highlight their work on GitHub Enterprise Server by sending the contribution counts to their GitHub.com profiles.

Enabling unified search between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub.com

After enabling GitHub Connect, you can allow search of GitHub.com from your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

Enterprise GitHub Connect GitHub search

Managing GitHub for mobile for your enterprise

You can decide whether authenticated users can connect to your GitHub Enterprise Server instance with GitHub for mobile.

Enterprise Mobile

Network ports

Enterprise Infrastructure Networking Security

Open network ports selectively based on the network services you need to expose for administrators, end users, and email support.

Site admin dashboard

You can use the site admin dashboard to manage users, organizations, and repositories in your enterprise directly in GitHub Enterprise Server.

Enterprise Fundamentals

Troubleshooting SSL errors

Enterprise Errors Infrastructure Networking Security Troubleshooting

If you run into SSL issues with your appliance, you can take actions to resolve them.

Using GitHub Enterprise Server with a load balancer

Enterprise High availability Infrastructure Networking

Use a load balancer in front of a single GitHub Enterprise Server appliance or a pair of appliances in a High Availability configuration.

About high availability configuration

Enterprise High availability Infrastructure

In a high availability configuration, a fully redundant secondary GitHub Enterprise Server appliance is kept in sync with the primary appliance through replication of all major datastores.

Accessing the monitor dashboard

Enterprise Fundamentals Infrastructure Monitoring Performance

GitHub Enterprise Server includes a web-based monitoring dashboard that displays historical data about your GitHub Enterprise Server appliance, such as CPU and storage usage, application and authentication response times, and general system health.

Creating a high availability replica

Enterprise High availability Infrastructure

In an active/passive configuration, the replica appliance is a redundant copy of the primary appliance. If the primary appliance fails, high availability mode allows the replica to act as the primary appliance, allowing minimal service disruption.

Differences between clustering and high availability (HA)

Clustering Enterprise High availability Infrastructure

GitHub Enterprise Server High Availability Configuration (HA) is a primary/secondary failover configuration that provides redundancy while Clustering provides redundancy and scalability by distributing read and write load across multiple nodes.

Enabling automatic update checks

You can enable automatic update checks so that your GitHub Enterprise Server instance checks for and downloads the latest GitHub Enterprise Server release.

Initiating a failover to your replica appliance

Enterprise High availability Infrastructure

You can failover to a GitHub Enterprise Server replica appliance using the command line for maintenance and testing, or if the primary appliance fails.

Recommended alert thresholds

Enterprise Infrastructure Monitoring Performance Storage

You can configure an alert to notify you of system resource issues before they affect your GitHub Enterprise Server appliance's performance.

Setting up external monitoring

Enterprise Infrastructure Monitoring Performance

You can monitor basic system resources on your GitHub Enterprise Server appliance using either the SNMP or collectd statistics collection protocols.

Upgrade requirements

Before upgrading GitHub Enterprise Server, review these recommendations and requirements to plan your upgrade strategy.

Upgrading GitHub Enterprise Server

Upgrade GitHub Enterprise Server to get the latest features and security updates.

About GitHub Enterprise Support

GitHub Support can help you troubleshoot issues that arise on GitHub Enterprise Server.

Enterprise Support

About using actions in your enterprise

GitHub Enterprise Server includes most GitHub-authored actions, and has options for enabling access to other actions from GitHub.com and GitHub Marketplace.

Actions Enterprise

Getting started with GitHub Actions for GitHub Enterprise Server

Learn about enabling and configuring GitHub Actions on GitHub Enterprise Server for the first time.

Actions Enterprise

Enforcing GitHub Actions policies for your enterprise

Actions Enterprise Policies

Enterprise administrators can manage access to GitHub Actions in an enterprise.

Enabling automatic access to GitHub.com actions using GitHub Connect

Actions Enterprise GitHub Connect

To allow GitHub Actions in your enterprise to use actions from GitHub.com, you can connect your enterprise instance to GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

High availability for GitHub Actions

Actions Enterprise High availability Infrastructure Storage

There are some special considerations for administering GitHub Actions in a high availability configuration.

Backing up and restoring GitHub Enterprise Server with GitHub Actions enabled

Actions Backups Enterprise Infrastructure

GitHub Actions data on your external storage provider is not included in regular GitHub Enterprise Server backups, and must be backed up separately.

Using a staging environment

Actions Enterprise Infrastructure Upgrades

Learn about using GitHub Actions with GitHub Enterprise Server staging environments.

About upgrades to new releases

You can benefit from new features and bug fixes for GitHub Enterprise Server by upgrading your enterprise to a newly released version.

Configuring package ecosystem support for your enterprise

Packages Enterprise Storage

You can configure GitHub Packages for your enterprise by globally enabling or disabling individual package ecosystems on your enterprise, including Docker, RubyGems, npm, Apache Maven, Gradle, or NuGet. Learn about other configuration requirements to support specific package ecosystems.

Enterprise Packages

Quickstart for configuring your MinIO storage bucket for GitHub Packages

Quickstart

Configure your custom MinIO storage bucket for use with GitHub Packages.

About pre-receive hooks

Pre-receive hooks are scripts that run on the GitHub Enterprise Server appliance that you can use to implement quality checks.

Creating a pre-receive hook environment

To execute pre-receive hooks, use either the default pre-receive environment, or create a custom environment.

Creating a pre-receive hook script

Use pre-receive hook scripts to create requirements for accepting or rejecting a push based on the contents.

Managing pre-receive hooks on the GitHub Enterprise Server appliance

Configure how people will use pre-receive hooks within their GitHub Enterprise Server appliance.

About migrations

A migration is the process of transferring data from a source location (either a GitHub.com organization or a GitHub Enterprise Server instance) to a target GitHub Enterprise Server instance. Migrations can be used to transfer your data when changing platforms or upgrading hardware on your instance.

Audited actions

Auditing Enterprise Security

You can search the audit log for a wide variety of actions.

Adding people to teams

Access management Enterprise Teams User account

Once a team has been created, organization admins can add users from your GitHub Enterprise Server instance to the team and determine which repositories they have access to.

Auditing SSH keys

Auditing Enterprise Security SSH

Site administrators can initiate an instance-wide audit of SSH keys.

Auditing users across your enterprise

Auditing Enterprise Organizations Security User account

The audit log dashboard shows site administrators the actions performed by all users and organizations across your enterprise within the past 90 days, including details such as who performed the action, what the action was, and when the action was performed.

Configuring Git Large File Storage for your enterprise

Git Enterprise LFS Storage

Git Large File Storage (Git LFS) is an open source extension to Git that allows you to work with large files the same way as other text files.

Configuring visibility for organization membership

Enterprise Organizations User account

You can set visibility for new organization members across your enterprise to public or private. You can also prevent members from changing their visibility from the default.

Continuous integration using Jenkins

You can automatically trigger build jobs on a Jenkins server when pushes are made to a repository in your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

CI Enterprise

Disabling Git SSH access on your enterprise

Enterprise Policies Security SSH

You can prevent people from using Git over SSH for certain or all repositories on your enterprise.

Creating teams

Access management Enterprise Teams User account

Teams give organizations the ability to create groups of members and control access to repositories. Team members can be granted read, write, or admin permissions to specific repositories.

Exporting migration data from GitHub.com

You can export migration data from an organization on GitHub.com by using the API to select repositories to migrate, then generating a migration archive that you can import into a GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

API Enterprise Migration

Exporting migration data from your enterprise

To change platforms or move from a trial instance to a production instance, you can export migration data from a GitHub Enterprise Server instance by preparing the instance, locking the repositories, and generating a migration archive.

API Enterprise Migration

Importing data from third-party version control systems

Using the git-import suite of tools, you can import from Subversion, Mercurial and Team Foundation Version Control to Git repositories on GitHub Enterprise Server.

Managing dormant users

Accounts Enterprise Licensing

A user account is considered to be dormant if it has not been active for at least a month. You may choose to suspend dormant users to free up user licenses.

Managing global webhooks

Site administrators can view, add, edit, and delete global webhooks to track events for the enterprise.

Enterprise Webhooks

Managing projects using Jira

Enterprise Project management

You can integrate Jira with GitHub Enterprise for project management.

Removing users from teams and organizations

Access management Accounts Enterprise Teams

If a member of your organization no longer requires access to certain repositories, you can remove them from the team that allows that access. If a member of your organization no longer requires access to any repositories owned by the organization, you can remove them from the organization.

Migrating data to your enterprise

After generating a migration archive, you can import the data to your target GitHub Enterprise Server instance. You'll be able to review changes for potential conflicts before permanently applying the changes to your target instance.

Migrating to internal repositories

Enterprise Privacy Repositories Security

You can migrate to internal repositories to unify the innersource experience for developers using both GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud.

Placing a legal hold on a user or organization

Accounts Auditing Enterprise Organizations User account

You can place a legal hold on a user or organization to ensure that repositories they own cannot be permanently removed from your enterprise.

Preparing to migrate data to your enterprise

After generating a migration archive, you can import the data to your target GitHub Enterprise Server instance. You'll be able to review changes for potential conflicts before permanently applying the changes to your target instance.

Preventing users from creating organizations

Enterprise Organizations Policies

You can prevent users from creating organizations in your enterprise.

Rebuilding contributions data

Enterprise Repositories User account

You may need to rebuild contributions data to link existing commits to a user account.

Requiring two-factor authentication for an organization

2FA Enterprise Organizations Policies Security

You can require organization members and outside collaborators to enable two-factor authentication for their personal accounts in an organization, making it harder for malicious actors to access an organization's repositories and settings.

Suspending and unsuspending users