Skip to main content

Configuring SCIM provisioning with Okta

Learn how to configure Okta to communicate with your enterprise using System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM).

Who can use this feature?

People with admin access to the IdP

Enterprise Managed Users is available for new enterprise accounts on GitHub Enterprise Cloud. See "About Enterprise Managed Users."

About provisioning with Okta

If you use Okta as an IdP, you can use Okta's application to provision user accounts, manage enterprise membership, and manage team memberships for organizations in your enterprise. Okta is a partner IdP, so you can simplify your authentication and provisioning configuration by using the Okta application for Enterprise Managed Users. For more information, see "About Enterprise Managed Users."

Alternatively, if you only intend to use Okta for SAML authentication and you want to use a different IdP for provisioning, you can integrate with GitHub's REST API for SCIM. For more information, see "Provisioning users and groups with SCIM using the REST API."

Supported features

Enterprise Managed Users supports the following provisioning features for Okta.

FeatureDescription
Push New UsersUsers that are assigned to the GitHub Enterprise Managed User application in Okta are automatically created in the enterprise on GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
Push Profile UpdateUpdates made to the user's profile in Okta will be pushed to GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
Push GroupsGroups in Okta that are assigned to the the GitHub Enterprise Managed User application as Push Groups are automatically created in the enterprise on GitHub Enterprise Cloud.
Push User DeactivationUnassigning the user from the GitHub Enterprise Managed User application in Okta will disable the user on GitHub Enterprise Cloud. The user will not be able to sign in, but the user's information is maintained.
Reactivate UsersUsers in Okta whose Okta accounts are reactivated and who are assigned back to the GitHub Enterprise Managed User application on Okta will be enabled.

Note: Enterprise Managed Users does not support modifications to usernames.

Prerequisites

  • GitHub recommends that you only authenticate requests with Okta's SCIM application using a personal access token (classic) associated with your enterprise's setup user. The token requires the scim:enterprise scope. For more information, see "Getting started with Enterprise Managed Users."

  • You must use Okta's application for both authentication and provisioning.

  • Your Okta product must support System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM). For more information, review Okta's documentation or contact Okta's support team.

1. Set your enterprise name

After your enterprise with managed users has been created, you can begin to configure provisioning by setting your enterprise name in Okta.

  1. Navigate to your GitHub Enterprise Managed User application on Okta.
  2. Click the Sign On tab.
  3. To make changes, click Edit.
  4. Under "Advanced Sign-on Settings", in the "Enterprise Name" text box, type your enterprise name. For example, if you access your enterprise at https://github.com/enterprises/octoinc, your enterprise name would be "octoinc".
  5. To save your enterprise name, click Save.

2. Configure SCIM

After setting your enterprise name, you can proceed to configure provisioning settings.

To configure provisioning, the setup user with the @SHORT-CODE_admin username will need to provide a personal access token (classic) with the scim:enterprise scope. See "Getting started with Enterprise Managed Users."

  1. Navigate to your GitHub Enterprise Managed User application on Okta.

  2. Click the Provisioning tab.

  3. In the settings menu, click Integration.

  4. To make changes, click Edit.

  5. Click Configure API integration.

  6. In the "API Token" field, enter the personal access token (classic) with the admin:enterprise scope belonging to the setup user.

    Note

    "Import Groups" is not supported by GitHub. Selecting or deselecting the checkbox has no impact on your configuration.

  7. Click Test API Credentials. If the test is successful, a verification message will appear at the top of the screen.

  8. To save the token, click Save.

  9. In the settings menu, click To App.

  10. To the right of "Provisioning to App", to allow changes to be made, click Edit.

  11. Select Enable to the right of Create Users, Update User Attributes, and Deactivate Users.

  12. To finish configuring provisioning, click Save.

When you have finished configuring SCIM, you may want to disable some SAML settings you enabled for the configuration process. See "Configuring SCIM provisioning for Enterprise Managed Users."

How do I assign users and groups?

After you have configured authentication and provisioning, you will be able to provision new users on GitHub by assigning users or groups to the GitHub Enterprise Managed User application.

Note: To avoid exceeding the rate limit on GitHub Enterprise Cloud, do not assign more than 1,000 users per hour to the SCIM integration on your IdP. If you use groups to assign users to the IdP application, do not add more than 1,000 users to each group per hour. If you exceed these thresholds, attempts to provision users may fail with a "rate limit" error. You can review your IdP logs to confirm if attempted SCIM provisioning or push operations failed due to a rate limit error. The response to a failed provisioning attempt will depend on the IdP. For more information, see "Troubleshooting identity and access management for your enterprise."

You can also automatically manage organization membership by adding groups to the "Push Groups" tab in Okta. When the group is provisioned successfully, it will be available to connect to teams in the enterprise's organizations. For more information about managing teams, see "Managing team memberships with identity provider groups."

When assigning users, you can use the "Roles" attribute in the application on your IdP to set a user's role in your enterprise on GitHub Enterprise Cloud. For more information about the roles available to assign, see "Roles in an enterprise."

Note: You can only set the "Roles" attribute for an individual user, not a group. If you want to set roles for everyone in a group that is assigned to the application in Okta, you must use the "Roles" attribute for each group member, individually.

How do I deprovision users and groups?

To remove a user or group from GitHub Enterprise Cloud, remove the user or group from both the "Assignments" tab and the "Push groups" tab in Okta. For users, make sure the user is removed from all groups in the "Push Groups" tab.