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This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2022-10-12. No patch releases will be made, even for critical security issues. For better performance, improved security, and new features, upgrade to the latest version of GitHub Enterprise. For help with the upgrade, contact GitHub Enterprise support.

Installing GitHub Enterprise Server on OpenStack KVM

To install GitHub Enterprise Server on OpenStack KVM, you must have OpenStack access and download the GitHub Enterprise Server QCOW2 image.

Prerequisites

Hardware considerations

Minimum requirements

We recommend different hardware configurations depending on the number of user licenses for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. If you provision more resources than the minimum requirements, your instance will perform and scale better.

User licensesvCPUsMemoryAttached storageRoot storage
Trial, demo, or 10 light users432 GB150 GB200 GB
10 to 3,000848 GB300 GB200 GB
3,000 to 50001264 GB500 GB200 GB
5,000 to 80001696 GB750 GB200 GB
8,000 to 10,000+20160 GB1000 GB200 GB

If you plan to enable GitHub Actions for the users of your instance, more resources are required.

vCPUsMemoryMaximum Concurrency
32128 GB1000 jobs
64256 GB1300 jobs
96384 GB2200 jobs

For more information about these requirements, see "Getting started with GitHub Actions for GitHub Enterprise Server."

For more information about adjusting resources for an existing instance, see "Increasing storage capacity" and "Increasing CPU or memory resources."

Storage

We recommend a high-performance SSD with high input/output operations per second (IOPS) and low latency for GitHub Enterprise Server. Workloads are I/O intensive. If you use a bare metal hypervisor, we recommend directly attaching the disk or using a disk from a storage area network (SAN).

Your instance requires a persistent data disk separate from the root disk. For more information, see "System overview."

To configure GitHub Actions, you must provide external blob storage. For more information, see "Getting started with GitHub Actions for GitHub Enterprise Server."

The available space on the root filesystem will be 50% of the total disk size. You can resize your instance's root disk by building a new instance or using an existing instance. For more information, see "System overview" and "Increasing storage capacity."

CPU and memory

The CPU and memory resources that GitHub Enterprise Server requires depend on the levels of activity for users, automations, and integrations.

If you plan to enable GitHub Actions for the users of your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, you may need to provision additional CPU and memory resources for your instance. For more information, see "Getting started with GitHub Actions for GitHub Enterprise Server."

When you increase CPU resources, we recommend adding at least 6.5 GB of memory for each vCPU (up to 16 vCPUs) that you provision for the instance. When you use more than 16 vCPUs, you don't need to add 6.5 GB of memory for each vCPU, but you should monitor your instance to ensure it has enough memory.

Warning: We recommend that users configure webhook events to notify external systems of activity on GitHub Enterprise Server. Automated checks for changes, or polling, will negatively impact the performance and scalability of your instance. For more information, see "About webhooks."

For more information about monitoring the capacity and performance of GitHub Enterprise Server, see "Monitoring your appliance."

You can increase your instance's CPU or memory resources. For more information, see "Increasing CPU or memory resources."

Downloading the GitHub Enterprise Server image

  1. Download your license. For more information, see "Downloading your license for GitHub Enterprise."

  2. Navigate to the image you want to use for your new instance.

    • Navigate to Release notes.
    • In the right sidebar, click the version you want to download.
    • Click Download GitHub Enterprise Server X.X.X.
  3. Under "GitHub On-premises", select the "Select your hypervisor" dropdown menu and click OpenStack KVM (QCOW2).

  4. Click Download for OpenStack KVM (QCOW2).

Creating the GitHub Enterprise Server instance

To create the instance, you'll need to import the GitHub Enterprise Server image to your virtual machine and attach an additional storage volume for your instance data. For more information, see "Hardware considerations."

  1. In OpenStack Horizon, upload the GitHub Enterprise Server image you downloaded. For instructions, see the "Upload an image" section of the OpenStack guide "Upload and manage images."

  2. Create a new virtual disk to use as an attached storage volume for your instance data, and configure the size based on your user license count. For instructions, see the OpenStack guide "Create and manage volumes."

  3. Create a security group, and add a new security group rule for each port in the table below. For instructions, see the OpenStack guide "Configure access and security for instances."

    PortServiceDescription
    22SSHGit over SSH access. Clone, fetch, and push operations to public/private repositories supported.
    25SMTPSMTP with encryption (STARTTLS) support.
    80HTTPWeb application access. All requests are redirected to the HTTPS port when SSL is enabled.
    122SSHInstance shell access. The default SSH port (22) is dedicated to application git+ssh network traffic.
    161/UDPSNMPRequired for network monitoring protocol operation.
    443HTTPSWeb application and Git over HTTPS access.
    1194/UDPVPNSecure replication network tunnel in high availability configuration.
    8080HTTPPlain-text web based Management Console. Not required unless SSL is disabled manually.
    8443HTTPSSecure web based Management Console. Required for basic installation and configuration.
    9418GitSimple Git protocol port. Clone and fetch operations to public repositories only. Unencrypted network communication. If you have enabled private mode on your instance, then opening this port is only required if you also enabled anonymous Git read access. For more information, see "Enforcing repository management policies in your enterprise."
  4. Optionally, associate a floating IP to the instance. Depending on your OpenStack setup, you may need to allocate a floating IP to the project and associate it to the instance. Contact your system administrator to determine if this is the case for you. For more information, see "Allocate a floating IP address to an instance" in the OpenStack documentation.

  5. Launch your GitHub Enterprise Server instance using the image, data volume, and security group created in the previous steps. For instructions, see the OpenStack guide "Launch and manage instances."

Configuring the GitHub Enterprise Server instance

  1. Copy the virtual machine's public DNS name, and paste it into a web browser.
  2. At the prompt, upload your license file and set a management console password. For more information, see "Managing your license for GitHub Enterprise."
  3. In the Management Console, configure and save your desired settings. For more information, see "Configuring the GitHub Enterprise Server appliance."
  4. The instance will restart automatically.
  5. Click Visit your instance.

Further reading