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

In this guide

Prerequisites

  • You must have a GitHub Enterprise license file. To download an existing license file or request a trial license, visit enterprise.github.com. For more information, see "License files."

  • You must have access to an installation of OpenStack Horizon, the web-based user interface to OpenStack services. For more information, see the Horizon documentation.

Hardware considerations

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

For your storage device, we recommend a high-performance SSD, either directly attached or from a storage area network (SAN).

We recommend different hardware configurations based on the number of seats used in your GitHub Enterprise instance.

Seats vCPUs Memory Attached storage Root storage
10-500 2 16 GB 100 GB 200 GB
500-3000 4 32 GB 250 GB 200 GB
3000-5000 8 64 GB 500 GB 200 GB
5000-8000 12 72 GB 750 GB 200 GB
8000-10000+ 16 128 GB 1000 GB 200 GB

These are minimum recommendations. More resources may be required depending on your usage, such as user activity and selected integrations.

Note: The root disk can be resized by building a new appliance or using an existing appliance. For more information, see "Increasing storage capacity."

Warning: We recommend you use webhooks to fetch repository changes for continuous integration (CI) or similar systems. Regular automatic checks, or polling, will significantly reduce the scalability of your instance. For more information, see "About webhooks"

Downloading the GitHub Enterprise image

  1. Navigate to the GitHub Enterprise download page.

  2. To download your license file, click Download license.

  3. Click Get the latest release of GitHub Enterprise.

  4. Select GitHub On-premises, then click OpenStack KVM (QCOW2).

  5. Click Download for OpenStack KVM (QCOW2).

Creating the GitHub Enterprise instance

To create the instance, you'll need to import the GitHub Enterprise 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 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 seat 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."

    Port Service Description
    22 SSH Git over SSH access. Clone, fetch, and push operations to public/private repositories supported.
    25 SMTP SMTP with encryption (STARTTLS) support.
    80 HTTP Web application access. All requests are redirected to the HTTPS port when SSL is enabled.
    122 SSH Instance shell access. The default SSH port (22) is dedicated to application git+ssh network traffic.
    161/UDP SNMP Required for network monitoring protocol operation.
    443 HTTPS Web application and Git over HTTPS access.
    1194/UDP VPN Secure replication network tunnel in high availability configuration.
    8080 HTTP Plain-text web based Management Console. Not required unless SSL is disabled manually.
    8443 HTTPS Secure web based Management Console. Required for basic installation and configuration.
    9418 Git Simple Git protocol port. Clone and fetch operations to public repositories only. Unencrypted network communication.

  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 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 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 "License files."

  3. In the Management Console, configure and save your desired settings. For more information, see "Configuring the GitHub Enterprise appliance."

  4. The instance will restart automatically.

  5. Click Visit your instance.

Further reading