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Version: 19.x (unreleased)

Protect a GitHub Organization with Teleport

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Teleport protects your GitHub organization with a GitHub App scoped to specific repositories and permissions. git and gh commands go through Teleport with short-lived credentials instead of long-lived personal access tokens and SSH keys. Teleport records this activity in its audit log.

In this guide, you will:

  • Connect a GitHub organization to Teleport.
  • Configure access for a user.
  • Clone a repository and use the gh CLI through Teleport.

How it works​

Teleport uses a private GitHub App installed on your organization to authenticate on behalf of users. Once a user authorizes the app, Teleport proxies their Git commands and gh CLI calls using securely-stored, short-lived OAuth tokens.

A user's effective access is the narrowest of three: what Teleport's RBAC allows, what the GitHub App's installation grants, and what the user's own GitHub permissions cover.

Prerequisites​

  • A running Teleport cluster accessible at a hostname with a valid TLS certificate. If you want to get started with Teleport, sign up for a free trial or set up a demo environment.

  • The tctl and tsh clients.

    Installing tctl and tsh clients

    1. Determine the version of your Teleport cluster. The tctl and tsh clients must be at most one major version behind your Teleport cluster version. Send a GET request to the Proxy Service at /v1/webapi/find and use a JSON query tool to obtain your cluster version. Replace teleport.example.com:443 with the web address of your Teleport Proxy Service:

      TELEPORT_DOMAIN=teleport.example.com:443
      TELEPORT_VERSION="$(curl -s https://$TELEPORT_DOMAIN/v1/webapi/find | jq -r '.server_version')"

    2. Follow the instructions for your platform to install tctl and tsh clients:

      Download the signed macOS .pkg installer for Teleport, which includes the tctl and tsh clients:

      curl -O https://cdn.teleport.dev/teleport-${TELEPORT_VERSION?}.pkg

      In Finder double-click the pkg file to begin installation.

      danger

      Using Homebrew to install Teleport is not supported. The Teleport package in Homebrew is not maintained by Teleport and we can't guarantee its reliability or security.

    Connecting with TLS routing disabled

    This guide's commands assume your Teleport cluster uses TLS routing (proxy_listener_mode: multiplex), where the tctl and tsh clients reach every Teleport service through the Proxy Service's web address on port 443. If you're not sure whether this applies to your cluster, check with whoever manages it.

    If your cluster uses separate listener ports instead, adjust ports as follows:

    • tsh commands (e.g., tsh login --proxy=...): continue using the Proxy Service web address on port 3080 (or 443 if behind a load balancer). Do not change these to port 3025.

    • Direct tctl or Auth Service API commands: use port 3025 for the Auth Service gRPC listener:

      tctl status --auth-server=teleport.example.com:3025
  • Check that you can connect to your Teleport cluster and verify that you can run tctl and tsh commands using your current credentials.

    1. Assign teleport.example.com to the domain name of the Teleport Proxy Service in your cluster and [email protected] to your Teleport username.

    2. Authenticate to your Teleport cluster. This depends on whether your shell is interactive or not.

      In an interactive shell: Run the following command. By default, this triggers a multi-factor authentication prompt:

      tsh login --proxy=teleport.example.com --user=[email protected]
      tctl status
      Cluster  teleport.example.com
      Version  19.0.0-dev
      CA pin   sha256:abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678abdc1245efgh5678

      On non-interactive environments: If you are running tsh and tctl as an AI agent, in a CI/CD environment, or similar, make sure the TELEPORT_IDENTITY_FILE environment variable is assigned to a valid file path with credentials for your cluster. tsh and tctl read the file path from the environment variable and do not require a separate authentication step. If there is no identity file available, we recommend that you set up Machine ID to provision one automatically.

      When executing tctl commands with an identity file, you must pass the --auth-server flag to provide the Teleport Auth Service address, which is not included in the identity file. If you provide the Proxy Service address, tctl connects to the Proxy Service, which forwards traffic to and from the Teleport Auth Service. Update 443 to 3025 if you are contacting the Auth Service directly with tctl:

      tctl status --auth-server=teleport.example.com:443

      For tsh commands that read an identity file, you must pass the --proxy flag, which points tsh to the address of the Teleport Proxy Service:

      tsh status --proxy=teleport.example.com

      Ensure client commands can access your identity file. Replace path/to/identity/file with the path to your identity file:

      export TELEPORT_IDENTITY_FILE="${TELEPORT_IDENTITY_FILE:-path/to/identity/file}"

      Add the --auth-server or --proxy flags to all subsequent tctl and tsh commands.

    If you can connect to the cluster and run the tctl status command, you can use your current credentials to run subsequent tctl commands from your workstation. If you host your own Teleport cluster, you can also run tctl commands on the computer that hosts the Teleport Auth Service for full permissions.
  • You must be an owner of the GitHub organization you want to connect.
  • If the organization is on GitHub Enterprise, your Teleport cluster requires a valid Teleport Enterprise license.
  • git and gh installed and added to your system's PATH environment variable.
Compatibility

Git over HTTPS is not supported when the Teleport cluster runs in FIPS mode. For FIPS clusters, use GitHub over SSH instead. Support for GitHub Enterprise Server (self-hosted) is not available as of the current release.

Step 1/3. Connect your GitHub organization​

Run the following command, replacing doc-example-org with your organization's name:

tctl integrations github add --org doc-example-org
This command connects your GitHub organization to Teleport for Git over HTTPS:
  "doc-example-org"
Prerequisites:  - You are an owner of the GitHub organization.  - You are a Teleport admin who can create integrations and git servers,    for example with the preset editor role.  - If the organization is on GitHub Enterprise, the Teleport cluster has a    Teleport Enterprise license.
Steps:  1. On your behalf, tctl creates the Teleport resources for the GitHub integration.  2. In your browser, you create the GitHub App "teleport.example.com",     requesting read and write access to contents, issues and pull     requests. You can customize its name there.  3. On your behalf, tctl saves the GitHub App credentials in Teleport.  4. In your browser, you install the GitHub App in "doc-example-org"     and choose which repositories it can access.
If a step fails, tctl deletes the Teleport resources it created.
Proceed with GitHub App creation [y/N]: y

The command opens your browser once, to create a GitHub App in your organization from a predefined manifest. After you approve, you're redirected to install the app in doc-example-org and choose which repositories it can access.

Customizing GitHub App permissions

The GitHub App is created with read and write access to contents, issues, and pull requests. You can always go to the app's settings on GitHub to change its permissions if needed.

Step 2/3. Configure access​

You can grant access to the GitHub organization with a custom role or with the preset access role.

Create a role that grants access to the organization:

# role_with_github_permissions.yaml
kind: role
metadata:
  name: github-access
spec:
  allow:
    github_permissions:
    - orgs:
      - doc-example-org
version: v8

Create the role:

tctl create role_with_github_permissions.yaml

Assign the github-access role to your Teleport user. The commands to run depend on how you authenticate to Teleport, that is, whether you have a local Teleport user, a single sign-on authentication connector, or a non-interactive user:

  1. Retrieve your local user's roles as a comma-separated list:

    ROLES=$(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.roles | join(",")')

  2. Edit your local user to add the new role:

    tctl users update $(tsh status -f json | jq -r '.active.username') \  --set-roles "${ROLES?},github-access"

  3. Sign out of the Teleport cluster and sign in again to assume the new role.

Step 3/3. Connect​

Use tsh git ls to view a list of GitHub organizations you have access to:

tsh git ls
Type   Organization    Username URL------ --------------- -------- ----------------------------------GitHub doc-example-org my-user  https://github.com/doc-example-org

Connect your GitHub identity so Teleport can act on your behalf:

tsh git login --github-org doc-example-org

This command opens a browser, prompting you to authorize access to your GitHub account: GitHub authorization view

To clone a repository from your GitHub organization, copy its HTTPS clone URL from the repository page on GitHub (Code > HTTPS) and run:

tsh git clone https://github.com/doc-example-org/my-repo.git
Cloning into 'my-repo'...
Configuring an existing Git repository instead

To configure an existing Git repository to proxy through Teleport, go to the repository and run:

tsh git config update
Remote "origin" is updated to use Teleport over HTTPS.

tsh git config update configures the protocol matching the current URL scheme of the "origin" remote, for example HTTPS if the remote already uses an HTTPS URL. To switch protocols instead, update the remote URL first, for example:

git remote set-url origin https://github.com/doc-example-org/my-repo.git

then run tsh git config update again.

Once the repo is cloned or configured, use git commands as normal:

cd my-repo
git fetch

Use tsh gh -- as a direct replacement for gh once your GitHub organization is connected to Teleport:

tsh gh -- api /user

Next steps​