Proxies for CI/CD Pipelines

CI/CD runners execute from cloud provider IP ranges — AWS, GCP, Azure. These IPs are frequently rate-limited or blocked by external services, and they always originate from the same region. Integrating proxy infrastructure into your pipeline enables reliable external API testing, geo-verification, and distributed E2E test execution.

GitHub Actions Configuration

name: Geo and Integration Tests

jobs: geo-tests: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - uses: actions/checkout@v4

• name: Set up Python
• uses: actions/setup-python@v5
• with:
• python-version: '3.12'

• name: Install dependencies
• run: pip install httpx pytest

• name: Run geo-targeted tests
• env:
• PROXY_USER: ${{ secrets.HEX_PROXY_USER }}
• PROXY_PASS: ${{ secrets.HEX_PROXY_PASS }}
• run: pytest tests/geo/ -v

• name: Run external API integration tests
• env:
• HTTP_PROXY: http://${{ secrets.HEX_PROXY_USER }}:${{ secrets.HEX_PROXY_PASS }}@gate.hexproxies.com:8080
• HTTPS_PROXY: http://${{ secrets.HEX_PROXY_USER }}:${{ secrets.HEX_PROXY_PASS }}@gate.hexproxies.com:8080
• run: pytest tests/integration/ -v
• ```

GitLab CI Configuration

geo_tests:
  image: python:3.12
  stage: test
  variables:
    HTTP_PROXY: "http://$HEX_PROXY_USER:$HEX_PROXY_PASS@gate.hexproxies.com:8080"
    HTTPS_PROXY: "http://$HEX_PROXY_USER:$HEX_PROXY_PASS@gate.hexproxies.com:8080"
  script:
    - pip install httpx pytest
    - pytest tests/geo/ -v
  only:
    - merge_requests
    - main

Jenkins Pipeline

pipeline {
    agent any
    environment {
        HEX_PROXY_USER = credentials('hex-proxy-user')
        HEX_PROXY_PASS = credentials('hex-proxy-pass')
        HTTP_PROXY = "http://${HEX_PROXY_USER}:${HEX_PROXY_PASS}@gate.hexproxies.com:8080"
        HTTPS_PROXY = "http://${HEX_PROXY_USER}:${HEX_PROXY_PASS}@gate.hexproxies.com:8080"
    }
    stages {
        stage('Geo Tests') {
            steps {
                sh 'pytest tests/geo/ -v'
            }
        }
    }
}

Writing Proxy-Aware Tests

import os
import httpx

PROXY_USER = os.environ.get("PROXY_USER", "") PROXY_PASS = os.environ.get("PROXY_PASS", "")

def get_proxy_url(country: str = "") -> str: user = f"{PROXY_USER}-country-{country.lower()}" if country else PROXY_USER return f"http://{user}:{PROXY_PASS}@gate.hexproxies.com:8080"

@pytest.mark.parametrize("country,expected_currency", [ ("US", "USD"), ("GB", "GBP"), ("DE", "EUR"), ("JP", "JPY"), ]) def test_pricing_page_currency(country: str, expected_currency: str): proxy = get_proxy_url(country) with httpx.Client(proxy=proxy, timeout=30) as client: resp = client.get("https://yoursite.com/pricing") assert resp.status_code == 200 assert expected_currency in resp.text

def test_api_rate_limit_not_hit(): """Verify external API calls from CI succeed through proxy.""" proxy = get_proxy_url() with httpx.Client(proxy=proxy, timeout=30) as client: resp = client.get("https://api.external-service.com/v1/data") assert resp.status_code != 429, "Rate limited — proxy rotation needed" assert resp.status_code == 200 ```

Security: Secrets Management

Never hardcode proxy credentials in pipeline files. Use your CI platform's secrets manager:

| Platform | Secret Storage | Access Pattern | |----------|---------------|----------------| | GitHub Actions | Repository Secrets | `${{ secrets.KEY }}` | | GitLab CI | CI/CD Variables (masked) | `$KEY` | | Jenkins | Credentials Plugin | `credentials('key-id')` |

Performance Considerations

CI pipelines are time-sensitive. Use ISP proxies for the lowest latency — sub-50ms overhead keeps your pipeline fast. For geo-specific tests that require country targeting, residential proxies add slightly more latency but provide accurate geographic placement.

Hex Proxies' infrastructure processes 50 billion requests per week. Your CI pipeline's test traffic is a rounding error on our capacity.