GitHub Enterprise Server 3.19 is now generally available

[ebndev]

GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) 3.19 enhances deployment efficiency, monitoring capabilities, code security, and policy management.

Here are a few highlights in the 3.19 release:

• An improved and more intuitive flow for creating repositories is now available. The new form provides a modern interface for collecting repository metadata, enforcing custom properties, and applying repository policies at creation time. This helps ensure consistent repository configuration across your enterprise. For more information about this update, read about the improved repository creation experience.

• Enterprise administrators can manage rules more efficiently with the general availability of ruleset history, import, and export. Ruleset history allows tracking and rolling back changes, while import and export simplify sharing and reusing rulesets, including those from GitHub’s ruleset-recipes repository. For more information, read our documentation on managing rulesets.

• Administrators can enforce policies to block specific actions and require SHA-based pinning when workflows use actions from public repositories. These policies help improve workflow security by ensuring only approved actions are used and referenced by immutable SHAs. For more information, read blocking and SHA pinning actions.

• You can now designate users as application managers of GitHub Apps owned by the enterprise. App managers can update application registration, but they cannot manage application installations. We have also enhanced the app manager feature to use the roles platform. This means that organization teams can now be assigned as app managers of individual organization-owned apps, and a new organization app manager role can be assigned to teams and users, giving them access to all of the apps owned by an organization. For more information, see GitHub App Managers.

• Starting with version 3.19, new installations of GHES will have OpenTelemetry metrics enabled and Collectd metrics disabled by default. You can choose to switch between the two if needed. Upgraded instances will keep their current settings. In the next two to three releases, OpenTelemetry metrics will become the only supported metrics. For more information, read OpenTelemetry metrics.

• You can now configure SSH and TLS ciphers for greater flexibility and control over which ciphers are used, including the ability to avoid weak ciphers. You can list the default ciphers and select which ones you want to use. For more information, read configuring cipher suites and cryptographic algorithms.

📚 Learn More

To learn more about GHES 3.19, check out the release notes, or download it now. If you have any issues upgrading to version 3.19 or experience any issues using these new features, please contact our support team.

⭐ Leave a comment

Join the discussion below to share your feedback and ask questions!

[wreiske]

Copilot on-prem GHES when? :)

[pallsama]

@wreiske Good question. I am not able to answer it yet though.

Curious to know how you plan to use Copilot on GHES. Would you be open to allowing GHES to connect to the cloud (GitHub boundary) so it can interact with models? I am interested to know any ideas you have in mind.

[wreiske]

Yes, we are completely open to it and also very interested in beta testing it. We have our own infrastructure we would want to run the action runners with, but any of the inferencing could talk to copilot APIs in the cloud.

[chrinoreEsambu]

Thank you for the 3.19 release and the detailed overview.
The improvements around repository creation, ruleset management, and workflow security are particularly valuable for maintaining consistency and governance at enterprise scale.
The transition toward OpenTelemetry metrics is also a welcome step for better observability.
Looking forward to adopting these updates and reviewing the impact in production environments.

[pallsama]

@chrinoreEsambu Thanks for sharing your note. I am glad to hear that the 3.19 enhancements are useful and relevant to you. 🎉

[offsoc]

We strongly urge GitHub to enhance GitHub Enterprise Server (GHES) with broader deployment platform flexibility, enabling deployment options comparable to—or exceeding—those offered by GitLab’s self-managed editions.

The current strict OS and deployment platform constraints pose a major barrier to large-scale adoption in high-security and highly regulated enterprise environments. In such organizations, operating systems and infrastructure are standardized and certified over long lifecycles, and cannot be swapped on demand.

We assert that enterprise-grade DevOps platforms should not require customers to adjust their OS strategy.

We therefore request GitHub to consider at least one, or preferably both, of the following approaches in future releases:

• Official support for RHEL and compatible distributions (Rocky Linux, AlmaLinux)
• Upgrade and long-term support for newer Ubuntu LTS versions, avoiding reliance on OS versions nearing end-of-life
• Broader deployment flexibility to reduce dependence on a single platform or OS

GitLab’s multi-platform self-managed deployments demonstrate that broader platform support reduces adoption barriers and aligns with enterprise operational and security standards.
Without similar flexibility, GHES risks being at a disadvantage in enterprise markets.

We emphasize: deployment platform flexibility is not an optional enhancement—it is a foundational capability for GHES as a long-term, enterprise-grade platform. This is critical for large organizations to adopt GHES at scale and ensure sustainable operations.