GitLab Testing From a US Mobile Line, Two Hours at a Time

GitLab admins spend a lot of time asking a question that is hard to answer from inside the network: what does this look like from outside? An IP allowlist on a self-managed instance, a runner that must reach the server from a remote site, a Pages site that should be public, an API token that should fail from an unknown address. HourlyProxies answers that question for the price of a coffee. One real US carrier line, 4G or 5G, yours alone for two hours, extendable to four, with no subscription behind it.

Testing what outsiders can reach

Self-managed GitLab lets you restrict access by address range, and gitlab.com lets group owners do the same. The only honest test of a restriction is a request from an address outside it. A mobile line in Houston or Phoenix is about as far from your office range as you can get while still being a normal US network, so a login attempt, a clone and an API call from it tell you quickly whether the rule bites.

Do the reverse too. If a contractor on a cellular connection cannot reach your instance, routing your own browser through a carrier line reproduces their path and shows you whether the block is yours, the carrier's address translation, or a proxy setting on their laptop.

Runners, webhooks and integrations

A GitLab Runner registered from a mobile line behaves like a runner at a branch office: it polls the server, picks up jobs and reports back through carrier NAT. Registering one for an hour verifies that your instance is reachable, that the token works and that job logs stream properly over a connection with higher latency than a datacenter link. Tear it down when the meter stops.

Outbound webhooks and integrations work in the other direction. Point a test project at an endpoint you expose on the line's address, trigger a push, and confirm the payload arrives. Because the address changes when the modem reconnects, keep the test short and do not leave a production webhook pointing at it.

gitlab.com rate limits and anonymous pages

gitlab.com applies limits per address for unauthenticated traffic and per user for authenticated traffic, and it tells you where you stand in response headers. A clean line lets you read those headers from an address that nobody else is using, which is useful when you ship a CLI tool and want to know what an anonymous user will hit. Pace your requests the way GitLab asks and authenticate for anything serious.

Pages sites, public snippets, container registry pulls and release pages can all be checked from the same line to see what a US visitor on a phone actually gets.

Hourly pricing for a short job

The first two hours cost $2 on 4G or $3 on 5G, each extra hour costs the same again, and a purchase stops at four hours. It never auto-renews. If the test turns into an afternoon, the hours already paid count toward the day price. Longer migrations or ongoing monitoring fit the day, week or month plans, which are $5, $28 and $65 on 4G and $6, $31 and $75 on 5G.

Every plan is one dedicated SIM in hardware we own in a US city, carrying only your traffic, with unlimited data under fair use, HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 access, free rotation and free location moves.

• Allowlist checks from a genuine outside address
• Runner and webhook tests over carrier NAT
• Rate limit headers you can trust
• 4G usually 20 to 45 Mbps, 5G 50 Mbps and up, depending on signal

Keep it clean

Use your own instance, your own gitlab.com account and projects you are allowed to touch. The line is a vantage point, not a disguise. It will not help with blocked accounts, with mass registration or with pulling other people's repositories faster than their limits allow, and we would rather you did not try.

Setting up a GitLab proxy on HourlyProxies

1. Buy a two-hour line in the city of your choice from the dashboard or the Telegram bot.
2. Point a browser, git or a runner host at the proxy endpoint.
3. Try the allowlisted action and confirm it is refused, then try the public one and confirm it works.
4. Trigger a webhook or job and watch it land.
5. Extend by an hour if you are mid-test, or let it expire.

GitLab proxy questions