About SAML single sign-on
You can enable SAML SSO in your organization without requiring all members to use it. Enabling but not enforcing SAML SSO in your organization can help smooth your organization's SAML SSO adoption. Once a majority of your organization's members use SAML SSO, you can enforce it within your organization.
Note
To use SAML single sign-on, your organization must use GitHub Enterprise Cloud. For more information about how you can try GitHub Enterprise Cloud for free, see "Setting up a trial of GitHub Enterprise Cloud."
If you enable but don't enforce SAML SSO, organization members who choose not to use SAML SSO can still be members of the organization. For more information on enforcing SAML SSO, see Enforcing SAML single sign-on for your organization.
Note
SAML authentication is not required for outside collaborators. For more information about outside collaborators, see "Roles in an organization."
When SAML SSO is disabled, all linked external identities are removed from GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
After you enable SAML SSO, OAuth app and GitHub App authorizations may need to be revoked and reauthorized before they can access the organization. For more information, see "Authorizing OAuth apps."
Enabling and testing SAML single sign-on for your organization
Before your enforce SAML SSO in your organization, ensure that you've prepared the organization. For more information, see Preparing to enforce SAML single sign-on in your organization.
For more information about the identity providers (IdPs) that GitHub supports for SAML SSO, see Connecting your identity provider to your organization.
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In the upper-right corner of GitHub, select your profile photo, then click Your organizations.
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Next to the organization, click Settings.
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In the "Security" section of the sidebar, click Authentication security.
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Under "SAML single sign-on", select Enable SAML authentication.
Note
After enabling SAML SSO, you can download your single sign-on recovery codes so that you can access your organization even if your IdP is unavailable. For more information, see Downloading your organization's SAML single sign-on recovery codes.
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In the "Sign on URL" field, type the HTTPS endpoint of your IdP for single sign-on requests. This value is available in your IdP configuration.
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Optionally, in the "Issuer" field, type your SAML issuer's name. This verifies the authenticity of sent messages.
Note
If you want to enable team synchronization for your organization, the "Issuer" field is a required. For more information, see Managing team synchronization for your organization.
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Under "Public Certificate," paste a certificate to verify SAML responses.
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Under your public certificate, to the right of the current signature and digest methods, click .
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Select the Signature Method and Digest Method dropdown menus, then click the hashing algorithm used by your SAML issuer.
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Before enabling SAML SSO for your organization, to ensure that the information you've entered is correct, click Test SAML configuration. This test uses Service Provider initiated (SP-initiated) authentication and must be successful before you can save the SAML settings.
Tip
When setting up SAML SSO in your organization, you can test your implementation without affecting your organization members by leaving Require SAML SSO authentication for all members of the organization name organization unchecked.
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To enforce SAML SSO and remove all organization members who haven't authenticated via your IdP, select Require SAML SSO authentication for all members of the organization name organization. For more information on enforcing SAML SSO, see Enforcing SAML single sign-on for your organization.
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Click Save.
