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github.tamu.edu Frequently Asked Questions

Who Can use it?

Everyone with a TAMU NetID. If you are able to log into the site, then you are allowed to use it. There is no way to give special guest accounts or open access to anyone that does not have a NetID.

Acceptable Use

Users of the Service must follow:

The Service is appropriate for many academic uses as well as some business and administrative uses. The Service is not appropriate for:

Electronic Protected Health Information (EPHI) subject to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Data controlled for export under Export Control Laws (EAR, ITAR).
Personally Identifiable Information (PII), including Social Security Numbers, credit card numbers, and bank or financial account numbers.
High Risk Activities such as those involving business records in which loss or inappropriate disclosure would result in large consequences in terms of economic loss, loss of trust, or legal liability.

Private Repos

How many can I have?

Essentially an unlimited amount of private repositories.

Who can see them?

Only you and anyone you add as a collaborator.

Can administrators see them?

Not easily. Looking at a private repository is a very deliberate act and we have to log why we did it. We will never go digging through someone's private code without permission or a court order.

Public Repos

Public repositories on github.tamu.edu are visible to anyone able to log in using a NetID. There is no way to open this up any further. If you truly want a public repository, github.com allows unlimited public repositories at no cost.

Size Limitations

We use the same guidelines that github.com uses for their repository limits, github.tamu.edu is meant to store code, configs, and other plain text files. The Github rule of thumb is 1GB per repository and 100MB per file, Github it is not a good fit for data base dumps, compiled code, or large media files.

If a single user/organization is found to be using too much storage we will request they stop and suspend their account if it continues.

Firewall

github.tamu.edu is currently open through the firewall on ports 22, 80, and 443.

Suspendable Offenses

Unless someone is rapidly causing harm to the service we will always request the offense be corrected before suspending an account.

Consuming large quantities of disk space by uploading binary files, pictures, etc.
Abusing the API

NetID Change

Will I still have access to my old account?

No, if you change your NetID then Github will create a new account with your new NetID.

Can I move my repositories from my old account?

Send an email or create an issue requesting we move your account.

Can I have the same deploy key on multiple repositories?

No, neither Github Enterprise or Github Hosted support this.

Backups and DR

The system is backed up via periodic database dumps and repos data syncs from the github server. The backups are then stored off site on spinning disk. These data backups are taken every four hours, held for up to a week, and are only for disaster recovery scenarios!

In the event of a disaster with the Github server itself we expect to be able to recover in under 2 hours.

Questions, Comments, or Concerns

If you have additional questions, contact us