github-sso.mdx

title	description	videoBanner
Set up Single Sign-On with GitHub	Setting up GitHub SSO	XjgN2WWFCX8

This guide explains how to set up GitHub Single Sign On (SSO) so you can automatically map teams in your GitHub organization to users and roles in Teleport.

Prerequisites

• A GitHub organization with at least one team.

  In Teleport Community Edition and Teleport Team, this organization must not have external SSO set up, or Teleport will refuse to create the GitHub authentication connector.

  In Teleport Enterprise and Enterprise Cloud, organization can be hosted from either GitHub Cloud or GitHub Enterprise Server.

• Teleport role with access to maintaining github resources for using tctl from the Desktop. This is available in the default editor role.

(!docs/pages/includes/edition-prereqs-tabs.mdx!)

• (!docs/pages/includes/tctl.mdx!)

Step 1/3. Create a GitHub OAuth app

Create and register a GitHub OAuth App. When you do so, ensure that your OAuth App's "Authentication callback URL" is the following:

https://PROXY_ADDRESS/v1/webapi/github/

Replace PROXY_ADDRESS with be the public address of the Teleport Proxy Service or your Teleport Cloud workspace URL (e.g., example.teleport.sh).

The app must have the read:org scope in order to be able to read org and team membership details.

Instructions for creating a GitHub OAuth app are available in GitHub's documentation

Create a client secret to use along with the client ID in the next step:

Step 2/3. Create a GitHub authentication connector

In this section, you will define a GitHub authentication connector using tctl.

On your workstation, create a file called client-secret.txt consisting only of your client secret.

Update this example command with:

• Your OAuth app's client ID and client secret created during the previous step.
• The roles you want to map from your GitHub organization to Teleport roles. Roles are defined in the Repository roles section of your organization's settings.

See tctl sso configure github for a full reference of flags for this command:

$ tctl sso configure github \
--id=<Var name="GITHUB-CLIENT-ID"/> \
--teams-to-roles=<Var name="ORG-NAME,github-team,access,editor"/> \
--secret=$(cat client-secret.txt) \
> github.yaml

GitHub organizations and teams should be referred to by their slug, not display name. To create the slug, GitHub replaces special characters in the name string, changes all words to lowercase, and replaces spaces with a `-` separator. For example, `My TEam Näme` would become `my-team-name`. You can confirm the slug in GitHub Web application URLs or via the GitHub API. Example: navigate to the team `My Team` in the GitHub web application. The URL `https://github.com/orgs/org-name/teams/my-team` shows the slug is `my-team`.

The contents of github.yaml should resemble the following:

```yaml kind: github metadata: name: github spec: api_endpoint_url: https://api.github.com client_id: client_secret: display: GitHub endpoint_url: https://github.com redirect_url: https:///v1/webapi/github/callback teams_to_logins: null teams_to_roles: - organization: org-name roles: - access - editor team: github-team version: v3 ```

<TabItem scope={["enterprise", "cloud"]} label="Commercial">

kind: github
metadata:
  name: github
spec:
  api_endpoint_url: ""
  client_id: <client-id>
  client_secret: <client-secret>
  display: GitHub
  endpoint_url: ""
  redirect_url: https://<proxy-address>/v1/webapi/github/callback
  teams_to_logins: null
  teams_to_roles:
    - organization: org-name
      roles:
        - access
        - editor
        - reviewer
      team: github-team
version: v3

You can add multiple instances of the `--teams-to-roles` flag or edit the connector file to define multiple mappings. For example:

$  tctl sso configure github \
--id=<Var name="GITHUB-CLIENT-ID"/> \
--teams-to-roles=<Var name="ORG-NAME,github-team,access,editor"/> \
--teams-to-roles="org-name,administrators,admins \
--teams-to-roles="different-org,developers,dev \
--secret=$(cat client-secret.txt) \
> github.yaml

spec.
  teams_to_roles:
    - organization: org-name
      roles:
        - access
        - editor
      team: github-team
    - organization: org-name
      roles:
        - admins
      team: administrators
    - organization: different-org
      roles:
        - devs
      team: developers

For self-hosted GitHub Enterprise servers, you can specify the server instance endpoints with the --endpoint-url, --api-endpoint-url parameters:

$ tctl sso configure github \
--id=<Var name="GITHUB-CLIENT-ID"/> \
--teams-to-roles=<Var name="ORG-NAME,github-team,access,editor"/> \
--secret=$(cat client-secret.txt) \
--endpoint-url=https://<Var name="github-enterprise-server-address"/>
--api-endpoint-url=https://<Var name="api-github-enterprise-server-address"/>
> github.yaml

...
spec:
  ...
  api_endpoint_url: https://<api-github-enterprise-server-address>
  endpoint_url: https://<github-enterprise-server-address>
  ...

You can test the connector configuration before applying it to your cluster. This is strongly encouraged to avoid interruption to active clusters:

$ cat github.yaml | tctl sso test
If browser window does not open automatically, open it by clicking on the link:
 http://127.0.0.1:52690/35714f6b-...
Success! Logged in as: alice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Authentication details:
   roles:
   - access
   - editor
   traits:
     github_teams:
     - admins
     kubernetes_groups: null
     kubernetes_users: null
     logins:
     - alice
   username: alice
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[GitHub] Received claims:
organization_to_teams:
  Octocats:
  - admins
teams:
- admins
username: alice

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[GitHub] Connector team to roles mapping:
- organization: Octocats
  roles:
  - access
  - editor
  team: admins

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more details repeat the command with --debug flag.

Finally, create the connector using tctl:

$ tctl create -f github.yaml
authentication connector "github" has been created

When going through the GitHub authentication flow for the first time, the application must be granted access to all organizations that are present in the "teams to logins" mapping, otherwise Teleport will not be able to determine team memberships for these organizations.

After a user authenticates, Teleport will add the user's GitHub username to their internal.logins trait for their Teleport session. The preset access role has this trait variable configured to include the GitHub user as an authorized SSH login. Here is an example role configuration snippet using the trait variable:

  allow:
    # List of allowed SSH logins
    logins: ['{{internal.logins}}', ubuntu, debian]

    # List of node labels that users can SSH into
    node_labels:
      '*': '*'

Step 3/4. Log in to Teleport using GitHub

You can now log in with Teleport using GitHub SSO. Run the following to log out of Teleport and log in again using GitHub SSO.

$ tsh logout
# Logged out all users from all proxies.
$ tsh login --proxy=tele.example.com --auth=github
If browser window does not open automatically, open it by clicking on the link:
 http://127.0.0.1:56334/6bf976e6-a4be-4898-94eb-8a7b01af2158

$ tsh logout
# Logged out all users from all proxies.
$ tsh login --proxy=mytenant.teleport.sh --auth=github
If browser window does not open automatically, open it by clicking on the link:
 http://127.0.0.1:56334/6bf976e6-a4be-4898-94eb-8a7b01af2158

You can also log to the web UI using GitHub by clicking Other sign-in options at the login screen.

When you sign in for the first time, you will see a prompt to authorize your GitHub OAuth app:

Teleport will request only the read:org OAuth scope. Read more about OAuth scopes in GitHub's documentation: GitHub OAuth scopes

After logging in successfully, you will see the following:

You will receive the details of your user session within the CLI:

> Profile URL:        https://tele.example.com:443
  Logged in as:       jeff
  Cluster:            tele.example.com
  Roles:              access
  Logins:             jeff, ubuntu, debian
  Kubernetes:         enabled
  Kubernetes users:   dev
  Kubernetes groups:  developer
  Valid until:        2023-03-08 17:13:50 -0600 CST [valid for 7h51m0s]
  Extensions:         permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty, private-key-policy

<TabItem scope={["enterprise"]} label="Teleport Enterprise">

> Profile URL:        https://tele.example.com:443
  Logged in as:       jeff
  Cluster:            tele.example.com
  Roles:              access, requester
  Logins:             jeff, ubuntu, debian
  Kubernetes:         enabled
  Kubernetes users:   dev
  Kubernetes groups:  developer
  Valid until:        2023-03-08 17:13:50 -0600 CST [valid for 7h51m0s]
  Extensions:         permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty, private-key-policy

<TabItem scope={["cloud"]} label="Teleport Enterprise Cloud">

> Profile URL:        https://mytenant.teleport.sh:443
  Logged in as:       jeff
  Cluster:            mytenant.teleport.sh
  Roles:              access, requester
  Logins:             jeff, ubuntu, debian
  Kubernetes:         enabled
  Kubernetes users:   dev
  Kubernetes groups:  developer
  Valid until:        2023-03-08 17:13:50 -0600 CST [valid for 7h51m0s]
  Extensions:         permit-port-forwarding, permit-pty, private-key-policy

Step 4/4. Configure authentication preference

In the previous step we signed in to Teleport using GitHub credentials by specifying GitHub as our auth type. By editing the cluster_auth_preference resource we can make it the default auth type.

Edit the existing cluster_auth_preference resource using tctl:

$ tctl edit cap

A temporary file will open in your default editor with your cluster_auth_preference definition.

Ensure that cap.yaml includes the following content:

kind: cluster_auth_preference
metadata:
  name: cluster-auth-preference
spec:
  type: github
  webauthn:
    rp_id: 'example.teleport.sh'
version: v2

For rp_id, use the public address of your Teleport Proxy Service or Teleport Cloud workspace.

When you save and close the temporary file, tctl will update the resource:

#cluster auth preference has been updated

You can also edit your Teleport configuration file to include the following:

# Snippet from /etc/teleport.yaml
auth_service:
  authentication:
    type: github

After logging out of tsh, you can log back in without specifying --auth=github. You will automatically be redirected to the GitHub auth flow.

Troubleshooting

(!docs/pages/includes/sso/loginerrortroubleshooting.mdx!)

Teams Not Mapping to Roles

If you are not seeing teams mapping to roles as expected confirm you are using the slug of the organizations and teams in the connector. To create the slug, GitHub replaces special characters in the name string, changes all words to lowercase, and replaces spaces with a - separator. For example, "My TEam Näme" would become my-team-name. The GitHub Web application URLs and GitHub API can provide the slug.

Example: navigate to the team My Team in the GitHub web application. The URL https://github.com/orgs/org-name/teams/my-team shows the slug is my-team. Update the teams to roles mapping.

  teams_to_roles:
    - organization: my-org
      roles:
        - access
        - editor
        - reviewer
      team: my-team