---
layout: "docs"
page_title: "Auth Backend: GitHub"
sidebar_current: "docs-auth-github"
description: |-
  The GitHub auth backend allows authentication with Vault using GitHub.
---

# Auth Backend: GitHub

Name: `github`

The GitHub auth backend can be used to authenticate with Vault using a GitHub
personal access token. This method of authentication is most useful for humans:
operators or developers using Vault directly via the CLI.

## Authentication

#### Via the CLI

```
$ vault auth -method=github token=<api token>
...
```

#### Via the API

The endpoint for the GitHub login is `auth/github/login`. 

The `github` mountpoint value in the url is the default mountpoint value.
If you have mounted the `github` backend with a different mountpoint, use that value.

The `token` should be sent in the POST body encoded as JSON.

```shell
$ curl $VAULT_ADDR/v1/auth/github/login \
    -d '{ "token": "your_github_personal_access_token" }'
```

The response will be in JSON. For example:

```javascript
{
  "auth": {
    "renewable": true,
    "lease_duration": 2764800,
    "metadata": {
      "username": "vishalnayak",
      "org": "hashicorp"
    },
    "policies": [
      "default",
      "dev-policy"
    ],
    "accessor": "f93c4b2d-18b6-2b50-7a32-0fecf88237b8",
    "client_token": "1977fceb-3bfa-6c71-4d1f-b64af98ac018"
  },
  "warnings": null,
  "wrap_info": null,
  "data": null,
  "lease_duration": 0,
  "renewable": false,
  "lease_id": "",
  "request_id": "3c346f3b-e089-39ab-a953-a349f2284e3c"
}
```

## Configuration

First, you must enable the GitHub auth backend:

```
$ vault auth-enable github
Successfully enabled 'github' at 'github'!
```

Now when you run `vault auth -methods`, the GitHub backend is available:

```
Path       Type      Description
github/    github
token/     token     token based credentials
```

Prior to using the GitHub auth backend, it must be configured. To
configure it, use the `/config` endpoint with the following arguments:

  * `organization` (string, required) - The organization name a user must
     be a part of to authenticate.
  * `base_url` (string, optional) - For GitHub Enterprise or other API-compatible
     servers, the base URL to access the server.
  * `max_ttl` (string, optional) - Maximum duration after which authentication will be expired.
     This must be a string in a format parsable by Go's [time.ParseDuration](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#ParseDuration)
  * `ttl` (string, optional) - Duration after which authentication will be expired.
     This must be a string in a format parsable by Go's [time.ParseDuration](https://golang.org/pkg/time/#ParseDuration)

###Generate a GitHub Personal Access Token
Access your Personal Access Tokens in GitHub at [https://github.com/settings/tokens](https://github.com/settings/tokens).
Generate a new Token that has the scope `read:org`. Save the generated token. This is what you will provide to vault.

For example:

```
$ vault write auth/github/config organization=hashicorp
Success! Data written to: auth/github/config
```

After configuring that, you must map the teams of that organization to
policies within Vault. Use the `map/teams/<team>` endpoints to do that.
Team names must be slugified, so if your team name is: `Some Amazing Team`, 
you will need to include it as: `some-amazing-team`. 
Example:

```
$ vault write auth/github/map/teams/dev value=dev-policy
Success! Data written to: auth/github/map/teams/dev
```

The above would make anyone in the `dev` team receive tokens with the policy
`dev-policy`.

You can then auth with a user that is a member of the `dev` team using a
Personal Access Token with the `read:org` scope.

You can also create mappings for specific users in a similar fashion with the 
`map/users/<user>` endpoint.
Example:

```
$ vault write auth/github/map/users/user1 value=user1-policy
Success! Data written to: auth/github/map/teams/user1
```

Now a user with GitHub username `user1` will be assigned the `user1-policy` on authentication, 
in addition to any team policies.

GitHub token can also be supplied from the env variable `VAULT_AUTH_GITHUB_TOKEN`.

```
$ vault auth -method=github token=000000905b381e723b3d6a7d52f148a5d43c4b45
Successfully authenticated! You are now logged in.
The token below is already saved in the session. You do not
need to "vault auth" again with the token.
token: 0d9ab511-bc25-4fb6-a58b-94ce12b8da9c
token_duration: 2764800
token_policies: [default dev-policy]
```

Clients can use this token to perform an allowed set of operations on all the
paths contained by the policy set.