A load balancer design uses a network device to direct Git and HTTP traffic to individual GitHub Enterprise Server appliances. You can use a load balancer to restrict direct traffic to the appliance for security purposes or to redirect traffic if needed without DNS record changes. We strongly recommend using a TCP-based load balancer that supports the PROXY protocol.
DNS lookups for the GitHub Enterprise Server hostname should resolve to the load balancer. We recommend that you enable subdomain isolation. If subdomain isolation is enabled, an additional wildcard record (
*.HOSTNAME
) should also resolve to the load balancer. For more information, see "
Enabling subdomain isolation
."
Because client connections to GitHub Enterprise Server come from the load balancer, the client IP address can be lost.
If your load balancer can support it, we strongly recommend implementing the PROXY protocol. When no PROXY support is available, it is also possible to load balance the HTTP and HTTPS ports using the
X-Forwarded-For
header.
Security Warning
: When either PROXY support or HTTP forwarding is enabled, it is critical that no external traffic can directly reach the GitHub Enterprise Server appliances. If external traffic is not properly blocked, the source IP addresses can be forged.
Warning:
When terminating HTTPS connections on a load balancer, the requests from the load balancer to GitHub Enterprise Server also need to use HTTPS. Downgrading the connection to HTTP is not supported.
We strongly recommend enabling PROXY protocol support for both your instance and the load balancer. Use the instructions provided by your vendor to enable the PROXY protocol on your load balancer. For more information, see
the PROXY protocol documentation
.
Note:
GitHub Enterprise Server supports PROXY Protocol V1, which is incompatible with AWS Network Load Balancers. If you use AWS Network Load Balancers with GitHub Enterprise Server, do not enable PROXY support.
-
From an administrative account on GitHub Enterprise Server, in the upper-right corner of any page, click
.
-
If you're not already on the "Site admin" page, in the upper-left corner, click
Site admin
.
-
In the "
Site admin" sidebar, click
Management Console
.
-
In the "Settings" sidebar, click
Privacy
.
-
Under "External load balancers", select
Enable support for PROXY protocol
.
-
Under the "Settings" sidebar, click
Save settings
.
Note:
Saving settings in the Management Console restarts system services, which could result in user-visible downtime.
-
Wait for the configuration run to complete.
Source port
| Destination port
| Service description
|
---|
22
| 23
| Git over SSH
|
80
| 81
| HTTP
|
443
| 444
| HTTPS
|
8080
| 8081
| Management Console HTTP
|
8443
| 8444
| Management Console HTTPS
|
9418
| 9419
| Git
|
Use the X-Forwarded-For protocol
only
when the PROXY protocol is unavailable. The
X-Forwarded-For
header only works with HTTP and HTTPS. The IP address reported for Git connections over SSH will show the load balancer IP.
-
From an administrative account on GitHub Enterprise Server, in the upper-right corner of any page, click
.
-
If you're not already on the "Site admin" page, in the upper-left corner, click
Site admin
.
-
In the "
Site admin" sidebar, click
Management Console
.
-
In the "Settings" sidebar, click
Privacy
.
-
Under
External load balancers
, select
Allow HTTP X-Forwarded-For header
.
-
Under the "Settings" sidebar, click
Save settings
.
Note:
Saving settings in the Management Console restarts system services, which could result in user-visible downtime.
-
Wait for the configuration run to complete.
Source port
| Destination port
| Service description
|
---|
22
| 22
| Git over SSH
|
25
| 25
| SMTP
|
80
| 80
| HTTP
|
443
| 443
| HTTPS
|
8080
| 8080
| Management Console HTTP
|
8443
| 8443
| Management Console HTTPS
|
Health checks allow a load balancer to stop sending traffic to a node that is not responding if a pre-configured check fails on that node. If the instance is offline due to maintenance or unexpected failure, the load balancer can display a status page. In a High Availability (HA) configuration, a load balancer can be used as part of a failover strategy. However, automatic failover of HA pairs is not supported. You must manually promote the replica instance before it will begin serving requests. For more information, see "
Configuring high availability
."
Configure the load balancer to check the following URL.
http(s)://HOSTNAME/status
The endpoint will return status code
200
(OK) if the node is healthy and available to service end-user requests. For more information, see "
Monitoring a high-availability configuration
."
Note:
When the appliance is in maintenance mode, the
https://HOSTNAME/status
URL will return status code
503
(Service Unavailable). For more information, see "
Enabling and scheduling maintenance mode
."
If you cannot connect to services on your GitHub Enterprise Server instance through a load balancer, you can review the following information to troubleshoot the problem.
Note
: Always test changes to your network infrastructure and instance configuration in a staging environment. For more information, see "
Setting up a staging instance
."
If you enable support for the
X-Forwarded-For
header on your instance and load balancer, you may not be able to access your instance's Management Console. For more information about the Management Console and ports required for connections, see "
Administering your instance from the web UI
" and "
Network ports
."
If your GitHub Enterprise Server instance indicates that your session has expired when you connect to the Management Console through a load balancer, try one of the following configurations on your load balancer.
For more information, refer to the documentation for your load balancer.
When your GitHub Enterprise Server instance is accessed via a load balancer or reverse proxy, expected live updates, such as new comments on issues and changes in notification badges or check run output, may not display until the page is refreshed. This is most common when the reverse proxy or load balancer is running in a layer 7 mode or does not support the required
websocket
protocol.
To enable live updates, you may need to reconfigure the load balancer or proxy. For more information, refer to the documentation for your load balancer.