Logging Into the St. Thomas GitHub

Explains how to access the University of St. Thomas GitHub Campus for the first time, including completing the required single sign-on (SSO) linking between your GitHub and St. Thomas accounts, what normal sign-in looks like afterward, and the additional steps needed to use GitHub from the command line under SSO enforcement.

Our GitHub Campus works by linking users' GitHub accounts to their St. Thomas accounts.

When you first try to log in, you must go to our GitHub single sign-on page: 

• GitHub single sign-on page: https://github.com/orgs/UniversityOfSaintThomas/sso.

There, you will be prompted to log into both your St. Thomas account and your GitHub account. (You will be prompted to create a GitHub account if you do not already have one.)

After that, your accounts will remain permanently linked. Anyone with a valid St. Thomas account (including xtra- accounts) can join our GitHub Campus organization.

After the first time you connect your account, you will see your specific St. Thomas repositories on your personal dashboard at https://github.com.

When you first sign in, that signs in your GitHub account. Your linked St. Thomas account also needs to do a single sign-on for you to have full access. Fortunately, GitHub makes it easy to do so by displaying a message on your dashboard prompting you to do a single sign-on:

If you are already logged into your UST account, this is a one-click process. Otherwise, St. Thomas will ask you to sign in to your UST account, just like when you access your email.

You can also access the entire GitHub Campus organization by visiting the shortlink:

• GitHub Campus Shortlink: https://link.stthomas.edu/github

Visiting here while you are logged into GitHub, but not into your UST account, will again trigger a prompt for you to log into your UST account.

Once you have logged in and done single sign-on, you will be able to see all your repositories.

If you are not using git from your command line or terminal, or if you don't know what that means, you can skip this section.

Because our GitHub Campus organization enforces SSO signin for all users, you can't simply run git push, enter your credentials, and have it work. You will need to first set up a Personal Access Token unique to your account, give it permission to touch your repos, assign it SSO access to the University of Saint Thomas organization, and use the token as your GitHub password (from the command line) going forward.

Follow GitHub's guide: Creating a personal access token for the command line. How to hook this into your Git Credentials Manager (assuming you use it) is a bit more of a personal question, but you may find these two StackOverflow answers helpful.

Need help?

More information about the St. Thomas GitHub environment (including guides, labs, website management, team management, repo creation, and more) can be found in GitHub Campus: Read Me First.

ITS is available to provide any assistance that you may need with the St. Thomas GitHub. Email techdesk@stthomas.edu to open a support ticket (cc jjheaney@stthomas.edu).