If a user leaves or moves to a different part of the company, you should remove or modify their ability to access your GitHub Enterprise instance.

If employees leave the company, you can suspend their GitHub Enterprise accounts to open up seats in your site license while preserving the issues, comments, repositories, gists, and other data they created. Suspended users cannot sign into your instance, nor can they push or pull code.

When you suspend a user, the change takes effect immediately with no notification to the user. If the user attempts to pull or push to a repository, they'll receive this error:

git clone git@[hostname]:john-doe/test-repo.git
Cloning into 'test-repo'...
ERROR: Your account is suspended. Please check with your installation administrator.
fatal: The remote end hung up unexpectedly

Note: If LDAP Sync is enabled for your GitHub Enterprise instance, users are automatically suspended when they're removed from the LDAP directory server. When LDAP Sync is enabled for your instance, normal user suspension methods are disabled.

Suspending a user from the user admin dashboard

  1. In the upper-right corner of any page, click . Rocketship icon for accessing site admin settings

  2. In the search field, type the name of the user and click Search. Site admin settings search field

  3. In the search results, click the name of the user. Site admin settings search options

  4. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Admin. Admin Tools

  5. In the left sidebar, click Admin. Admin Tools

  6. Under "Account suspension," in the red Danger Zone box, click Suspend. Suspend button

  7. Provide a reason to suspend the user. Suspend reason

Unsuspending a user from the user admin dashboard

As when suspending a user, unsuspending a user takes effect immediately. The user will not be notified.

  1. In the upper-right corner of any page, click . Rocketship icon for accessing site admin settings

  2. In the left sidebar, click Suspended users. Suspended users tab

  3. Click the name of the user account that you would like to unsuspend. Suspended user

  4. In the upper-right corner of the page, click Admin. Admin Tools

  5. In the left sidebar, click Admin. Admin Tools

  6. Under "Account suspension," in the red Danger Zone box, click Unsuspend. Unsuspend button

  7. Provide a reason to unsuspend the user. Unsuspend reason

Suspending a user from the command line

  1. SSH into your GitHub Enterprise instance.

    ssh -p 122 admin@HOSTNAME

  2. Run ghe-user-suspend with the username to suspend.

    ghe-user-suspend username

Creating a custom message for suspended users

You can create a custom message that suspended users will see when attempting to sign in.

  1. In the upper-right corner of any page, click . Rocketship icon for accessing site admin settings

  2. In the left sidebar, click Admin center. Admin Center tab

  3. In the left sidebar, click Messages. Messages

  4. Click Add message. Add message

  5. Type your message into the Suspended user message box. You can type Markdown, or use the Markdown toolbar to style your message. Suspended user message
  6. Click the Preview button under the Suspended user message field to see the rendered message. Preview button
  7. Review the rendered message. Suspended user message rendered
  8. At the bottom of the page, click Save changes. Save changes

Unsuspending a user from the command line

  1. SSH into your GitHub Enterprise instance.

    ssh -p 122 admin@HOSTNAME

  2. Run ghe-user-unsuspend with the username to unsuspend.

    ghe-user-unsuspend username