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This version of GitHub Enterprise was discontinued on 2023-03-15. 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.

Backing up and restoring GitHub Enterprise Server with GitHub Actions enabled

In this article

To restore a backup of your GitHub Enterprise Server instance when GitHub Actions is enabled, you must configure GitHub Actions before restoring the backup with GitHub Enterprise Server Backup Utilities.

About backups of GitHub Enterprise Server when using GitHub Actions

You can use GitHub Enterprise Server Backup Utilities to back up and restore the data and configuration for your GitHub Enterprise Server instance to a new instance. For more information, see "Configuring backups on your appliance."

However, not all the data for GitHub Actions is included in these backups. GitHub Actions uses external storage to store workflow artifacts and logs. This data is stored on your external provider, such as Azure blob storage, Amazon S3, or MinIO. As a result, GitHub Enterprise Server backups and GitHub Enterprise Server high availability configurations do not provide protection for the data stored on this external storage, and instead rely on the data protection and replication provided by the external storage provider, such as Azure or AWS.

Restoring a backup of GitHub Enterprise Server when GitHub Actions is enabled

To restore a backup of your GitHub Enterprise Server instance with GitHub Actions, you must manually configure network settings and external storage on the destination instance before you restore your backup from GitHub Enterprise Server Backup Utilities.

  1. Confirm that the source instance is offline.

  2. Manually configure network settings on the replacement GitHub Enterprise Server instance. Network settings are excluded from the backup snapshot, and are not overwritten by ghe-restore. For more information, see "Configuring network settings."

  3. SSH into the destination instance. For more information, see "Accessing the administrative shell (SSH)."

    Shell
    $ ssh -p 122 admin@HOSTNAME

  4. Configure the destination instance to use the same external storage service for GitHub Actions as the source instance by entering one of the following commands.

    • Azure Blob Storage:

      Shell
      ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.blob-provider "azure"

    • Amazon S3:

      Shell
      ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.blob-provider "s3"

  5. Configure the external storage connection by entering the following commands, replacing the placeholder values with actual values for your connection.

    • Azure Blob Storage:

      Shell
      ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.azure.connection-string "CONNECTION STRING"

    • Amazon S3:

      Shell
      ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.s3.bucket-name "S3 BUCKET NAME"
ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.s3.service-url "S3 SERVICE URL"
ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.s3.access-key-id "S3 ACCESS KEY ID"
ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.s3.access-secret "S3 ACCESS SECRET"

      Optionally, to force path-style addressing for S3, also enter the following command.

      Shell
      ghe-config secrets.actions.storage.s3.force-path-style true

  6. To prepare to enable GitHub Actions on the destination instance, enter the following command.

    Shell
    ghe-config app.actions.enabled true

  7. To apply the configuration and enable GitHub Actions to connect to your external storage provider, enter the following command.

    Shell
    ghe-config-apply

  8. After GitHub Actions is configured and enabled, to restore the rest of the data from the backup, use the ghe-restore command. For more information, see "Configuring backups on your appliance."

  9. Re-register your self-hosted runners on the destination instance. For more information, see "Adding self-hosted runners."