Skip to main content

This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2023-07-06. 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.

Troubleshooting license usage for GitHub Enterprise

You can troubleshoot license usage for your enterprise by auditing license reports.

Who can use this feature

Enterprise owners can review license usage for GitHub Enterprise.

About unexpected license usage

If the number of consumed licenses for your enterprise is unexpected, you can review your consumed license report to audit your license usage across all your enterprise deployments and subscriptions. For more information, see "Viewing license usage for GitHub Enterprise" and "Viewing the subscription and usage for your enterprise account."

If you find errors, you can try troubleshooting steps.

For privacy reasons, enterprise owners cannot directly access the details of user accounts unless you use Enterprise Managed Users.

About the calculation of consumed licenses

If a user meets one or more of the following conditions, GitHub bills for the user.

  • The user utilizes deployments of GitHub Enterprise Server.
  • The user is a member of one of your organizations on GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
  • The user has write access to one of your organization's private repositories.
  • The user is a Visual Studio subscriber.

Invitations for these roles will consume a license until the invitation is accepted or expires. For more information about the people in your enterprise who consume a license, see "About per-user pricing."

For each user to consume a single seat regardless of how many deployments they use, you must synchronize license usage between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud. For more information, see "Syncing license usage between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud."

After you synchronize license usage, GitHub matches user accounts on GitHub Enterprise Server with user accounts on GitHub Enterprise Cloud by email address.

First, we first check the primary email address of each user on GitHub Enterprise Server. Then, we attempt to match that address with the email address for a user account on GitHub Enterprise Cloud. If your enterprise uses SAML SSO, we first check the following SAML attributes for email addresses.

  • http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/name
  • http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/ws/2005/05/identity/claims/emailaddress
  • username
  • NameID
  • emails

If no email addresses found in these attributes match the primary email address on GitHub Enterprise Server, or if your enterprise doesn't use SAML SSO, we then check each of the user's verified email addresses on GitHub Enterprise Cloud. For more information about verification of email addresses on GitHub.com, see "Verifying your email address" in the GitHub Enterprise Cloud documentation.

Fields in the consumed license files

The GitHub.com license usage report and GitHub Enterprise Server exported license usage file include a variety of fields to help you troubleshoot license usage for your enterprise.

GitHub.com license usage report (CSV file)

The license usage report for your enterprise is a CSV file that contains the following information about members of your enterprise. Some fields are specific to your GitHub Enterprise Cloud (GHEC) deployment, GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) connected environments, or your Visual Studio subscriptions (VSS) with GitHub Enterprise.

FieldDescription
github_com_loginThe username for the user's GHEC account
github_com_nameThe display name for the user's GHEC account
github_com_profileThe URL for the user's profile page on GHEC
github_com_userWhether or not the user has an account on GHEC
github_com_member_rolesFor each of the organizations the user belongs to on GHEC, the organization name and the user's role in that organization (Owner or Member) separated by a colon

Organizations delimited by commas
github_com_enterprise_roleCan be one of: Owner, Member, or Outside collaborator
github_com_verified_domain_emailsAll email addresses associated with the user's GHEC account that match your enterprise's verified domains
github_com_saml_name_idThe SAML username
github_com_orgs_with_pending_invitesAll pending invitations for the user's GHEC account to join organizations within your enterprise
license_typeCan be one of: Visual Studio subscription or Enterprise
enterprise_server_userWhether or not the user has at least one account on GHES
enterprise_server_primary_emailsThe primary email addresses associated with each of the user's GHES accounts
enterprise_server_user_idsFor each of the user's GHES accounts, the account's user ID
total_user_accountsThe total number of accounts the person has across both GHEC and GHES
visual_studio_subscription_userWhether or not the user is a Visual Studio subscriber
visual_studio_subscription_emailThe email address associated with the user's VSS
visual_studio_license_statusWhether the Visual Studio license has been matched to a GitHub user

Visual Studio subscribers who are not yet members of at least one organization in your enterprise will be included in the report with a pending invitation status, and will be missing values for the "Name" or "Profile link" field.

GitHub Enterprise Server exported license usage (JSON file)

Your GitHub Enterprise Server license usage is a JSON file that is typically used when performing a manual sync of user licenses between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud deployments. The file contains the following information specific to your GitHub Enterprise Server environment.

FieldDescription
FeaturesThe GitHub Connect features that are enabled on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, and the date and time of enablement.
Host nameThe hostname of your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.
HTTP onlyWhether Transport Layer Security (TLS) is enabled and configured on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. Can be one of: True or False.
LicenseA hash of your GitHub Enterprise Server license.
Public keyThe public key portion of your GitHub Enterprise Server license.
Server IDUUID generated for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.
VersionThe version of your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

Troubleshooting consumed licenses

To ensure that the each user is only consuming a single seat for different deployments and subscriptions, try the following troubleshooting steps.

  1. To help identify users that are consuming multiple seats, if your enterprise uses verified domains for GitHub Enterprise Cloud, review the list of enterprise members who do not have an email address from a verified domain associated with their account on GitHub.com. Often, these are the users who erroneously consume more than one licensed seat. For more information, see "Viewing people in your enterprise."

    Note: To make troubleshooting easier, we recommend using verified domains with your enterprise account on GitHub.com. For more information, see "Verifying or approving a domain for your enterprise."

  2. After you identify users who are consuming multiple seats, make sure that the same email address is associated with all of the user's accounts. For more information about which email addresses must match, see "About the calculation of consumed licenses."

  3. If an email address was recently updated or verified to correct a mismatch, view the timestamp of the last license sync job. If a job hasn't run since the correction was made, manually trigger a new job. For more information, see "Syncing license usage between GitHub Enterprise Server and GitHub Enterprise Cloud."

If you still have questions about your consumed licenses after reviewing the troubleshooting information above, you can contact GitHub Support through the GitHub Support portal.