GitHub Enterprise Server Backup with GitHub Actions

Notice: The contents of this repository are meant for reference example only and should not directly be used in a production environment without additional testing and validation.

Overview

This repository serves as an example for configuring GitHub Enterprise Server Backup Utilities to be executed using GitHub Actions.

This example is intended to be used by GitHub Enterprise Server(GHES) administrators who are looking to add additional visibility or notifications to scheduled backup runs where only crontab might be used currently by using GitHub Actions to execute the scheduled backup for logging and notifications.

Components

This example repository contains two GitHub Actions workflows.

Components - ghes-backup

Configuration contained in ghes-backup.yml is set to use only a workflow_call trigger to execute a backup job with provided inputs.

• inputs: There are a number of inputs created for this workflow which match to the values available for configuration in a backup.config file for backup-utils for executing ghe-backup.
• runs-on: The backup job has a runs-on block which defaults in this example to a value of ghes-backup-runner. This value should be the label which is setup for the GitHub Actions runner which resides on the backup-utils backup host.
• timeout-minutes: A realistic timeout value for the backup job should be set here (23 hours in this example).

Components - ghes-backup-cron

Configuration contained in ghes-backup-cron.yml is set to invoke the ghes-backup workflow on a schedule or via manual workflow_dispatch. Inputs are populated using with: for calling ghes-backup to specify parameters for the job's run-time.

Usage

Usage of this example requires a GHES installation and all of the requirements specified for backup-utils.

A self-hosted runner is configured on the backup host and is called by the ghes-backup workflow. This self-hosted runner should be repository-scoped only and this repository should be marked as private with only necessary members provided access.

The backup.config file used for execution during ghes-backup is created on job run using provided inputs from the ghes-backup-cron workflow. This file is created during run time to make sure that all config options match what is setup in this repository for execution.

The ghes-backup workflow currently assumes that the system account which spawned the GitHub Actions runner process has the necessary SSH identity configuration files in place.

graph
  a(ghes-backup-cron job is configured with required input values and schedule)
  b(ghes-backup is invoked by ghes-backup-cron)
  c(self-hosted runner on backup host picks up ghes-backup job)
  d(ghes-backup validates pre-req/dependencies)
  e(ghes-backup installs backup-utils and generates backup.config)
  f(ghes-backup triggers ghe-backup command)

  a --> b
  b --> c
  c --> d
  d --> e
  e --> f