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This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2022-10-12. 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.

Enabling GitHub Advanced Security for your enterprise

In this article

You can configure GitHub Enterprise Server to include GitHub Advanced Security. This provides extra features that help users find and fix security problems in their code.

GitHub Advanced Security is available for enterprise accounts on GitHub Enterprise Cloud and GitHub Enterprise Server. For more information about upgrading your GitHub Enterprise Server instance, see "About upgrades to new releases" and refer to the Upgrade assistant to find the upgrade path from your current release version.

About enabling GitHub Advanced Security

GitHub Advanced Security helps developers improve and maintain the security and quality of code. For more information, see "About GitHub Advanced Security."

When you enable GitHub Advanced Security for your enterprise, repository administrators in all organizations can enable the features unless you set up a policy to restrict access. For more information, see "Enforcing policies for Advanced Security in your enterprise."

For guidance on a phased deployment of GitHub Advanced Security, see "Introduction to adopting GitHub Advanced Security at scale."

Checking whether your license includes GitHub Advanced Security

  1. In the top-right corner of GitHub Enterprise Server, click your profile photo, then click Enterprise settings. "Enterprise settings" in drop-down menu for profile photo on GitHub Enterprise Server

  2. In the enterprise account sidebar, click Settings. Settings tab in the enterprise account sidebar

  3. In the left sidebar, click License. "License" tab in the enterprise account settings sidebar

  4. If your license includes GitHub Advanced Security, the license page includes a section showing details of current usage. GitHub Advanced Security section of Enterprise license

Prerequisites for enabling GitHub Advanced Security

  1. Upgrade your license for GitHub Enterprise Server to include GitHub Advanced Security. For information about licensing, see "About billing for GitHub Advanced Security."

  2. Download the new license file. For more information, see "Downloading your license for GitHub Enterprise."

  3. Upload the new license file to your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. For more information, see "Uploading a new license to GitHub Enterprise Server."

  4. Review the prerequisites for the features you plan to enable.

Enabling and disabling GitHub Advanced Security features

Warning: Changing this setting will cause user-facing services on GitHub Enterprise Server to restart. You should time this change carefully, to minimize downtime for users.

  1. From an administrative account on GitHub Enterprise Server, in the upper-right corner of any page, click .

    Screenshot of the rocket ship icon for accessing site admin settings

  2. If you're not already on the "Site admin" page, in the upper-left corner, click Site admin.

    Screenshot of "Site admin" link

  3. In the left sidebar, click Management Console. Management Console tab in the left sidebar

  4. In the left sidebar, click Security. Security sidebar

  5. Under "Security," select the features that you want to enable and deselect any features you want to disable. Checkbox to enable or disable Advanced Security features

  6. Under the left sidebar, click Save settings.

    Screenshot of the save settings button in the Management Console

    Note: Saving settings in the Management Console restarts system services, which could result in user-visible downtime.

  7. Wait for the configuration run to complete.

    Configuring your instance

When GitHub Enterprise Server has finished restarting, you're ready to set up any additional resources required for newly enabled features. For more information, see "Configuring code scanning for your appliance."

Enabling or disabling GitHub Advanced Security features via the administrative shell (SSH)

You can enable or disable features programmatically on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance. For more information about the administrative shell and command-line utilities for GitHub Enterprise Server, see "Accessing the administrative shell (SSH)" and "Command-line utilities."

For example, you can enable any GitHub Advanced Security feature with your infrastructure-as-code tooling when you deploy an instance for staging or disaster recovery.

  1. SSH into your GitHub Enterprise Server instance.

  2. Enable features for GitHub Advanced Security.

    • To enable Code scanning, enter the following commands. 
      ghe-config app.minio.enabled true
ghe-config app.code-scanning.enabled true
    • To enable Secret scanning, enter the following command. 
      ghe-config app.secret-scanning.enabled true
    • To enable the dependency graph, enter the following command. 
      ghe-config app.dependency-graph.enabled true

  3. Optionally, disable features for GitHub Advanced Security.

    • To disable code scanning, enter the following commands. 
      ghe-config app.minio.enabled false
ghe-config app.code-scanning.enabled false
    • To disable secret scanning, enter the following command. 
      ghe-config app.secret-scanning.enabled false
    • To disable the dependency graph, enter the following command. 
      ghe-config app.dependency-graph.enabled false

  4. Apply the configuration.

    ghe-config-apply