Configuring user provisioning for your enterprise

About user provisioning for your enterprise

GitHub AE uses SAML SSO for user authentication. You can centrally manage access to GitHub AE from an IdP that supports the SAML 2.0 standard. For more information, see "Configuring SAML single sign-on for your enterprise."

By default, your IdP does not communicate with GitHub AE automatically when you assign or unassign the application. GitHub AE creates a user account using SAML Just-in-Time (JIT) provisioning the first time someone navigates to GitHub AE and signs in by authenticating through your IdP. You may need to manually notify users when you grant access to GitHub AE, and you must manually deactivate the user account on GitHub AE during offboarding. You can use SCIM to provision and deprovision user accounts and access for GitHub AE automatically when you assign or unassign the application on your IdP. For more information about SCIM, see System for Cross-domain Identity Management: Protocol (RFC 7644) on the IETF website.

Configuring provisioning allows your IdP to communicate with your enterprise when you assign or unassign the application for GitHub AE to a user on your IdP. When you assign the application, your IdP will prompt your enterprise to create an account and send an onboarding email to the user. When you unassign the application, your IdP will communicate with GitHub AE to invalidate any SAML sessions and disable the member's account.

To configure provisioning for your enterprise, you must enable provisioning on GitHub AE, then install and configure a provisioning application on your IdP.

The provisioning application on your IdP communicates with GitHub AE via our SCIM API for enterprises. For more information, see "GitHub Enterprise administration" in the GitHub REST API documentation.

Supported identity providers

The following IdPs can provision or deprovision user accounts on your enterprise using SCIM.

• Azure AD

When you set up user provisioning with a supported IdP, you can also assign or unassign the application for GitHub AE to groups of users. These groups are then available to organization owners and team maintainers in your enterprise to map to GitHub AE teams. For more information, see "Synchronizing a team with an identity provider group."

Prerequisites

To automatically provision and deprovision access to your enterprise from your IdP, you must first configure SAML SSO when you initialize GitHub AE. For more information, see "Initializing GitHub AE."

You must have administrative access on your IdP to configure the application for user provisioning for GitHub AE.

Enabling user provisioning for your enterprise

1. While signed into your enterprise as an enterprise owner, create a personal access token with admin:enterprise scope. For more information, see "Creating a personal access token."

   Notes:

   • To create the personal access token, we recommend using the account for the first enterprise owner that you created during initialization. For more information, see "Initializing GitHub AE."
   • You'll need this personal access token to configure the application for SCIM on your IdP. Store the token securely in a password manager until you need the token again later in these instructions.

   Warning: If the user account for the enterprise owner who creates the personal access token is deactivated or deprovisioned, your IdP will no longer provision and deprovision user accounts for your enterprise automatically. Another enterprise owner must create a new personal access token and reconfigure provisioning on the IdP.

2. In the top-right corner of GitHub AE, click your profile photo, then click Enterprise settings.

   

3. In the enterprise account sidebar, click Settings.

   

4. In the left sidebar, click Security.

   

5. Under "SCIM User Provisioning", select Require SCIM user provisioning.

   

6. Click Save.

   

7. Configure user provisioning in the application for GitHub AE on your IdP.

   The following IdPs provide documentation about configuring provisioning for GitHub AE. If your IdP isn't listed, please contact your IdP to request support for GitHub AE.

   IdP	More information
   Azure AD	Tutorial: Configure GitHub AE for automatic user provisioning in the Microsoft Docs

   The application on your IdP requires two values to provision or deprovision user accounts on your enterprise.

   Value	Other names	Description	Example
   URL	Tenant URL	URL to the SCIM provisioning API for your enterprise on GitHub AE	https://api.YOUR-GITHUB-AE-HOSTNAME/scim/v2
   Shared secret	Personal access token, secret token	Token for application on your IdP to perform provisioning tasks on behalf of an enterprise owner	Personal access token you created in step 1