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If your app or its backend isn’t open to the whole internet, pick the option below that matches what stands in front of it. The residential proxy and the private network work on every kind of run: web apps in the browser, and mobile apps on cloud simulators, emulators and the physical phones assigned to your workspace. Both settings apply from the next run on. Anyone in the workspace can see them; only workspace owners and admins can change them.

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Residential proxy

Mini’s requests to the websites you list leave from a residential IP address in the country you pick. Every other request keeps the normal network.
App settings, General: Proxy test from another country with country and websites, Private network to reach internal servers, and Backend API

The network settings of an app.

1

Open the proxy settings

Open the app and go to App settings → General → Proxy: test from another country.
2

Pick the country

Turn on Run tests from another country and pick the Country your tests should appear to come from. You can pick from 199 countries.
3

List the websites

Under Websites, add the hostnames that should see the other country, like api.example.com. *.example.com covers every subdomain.
From the CLI:
show returns the countries you can pick and how many domains the list accepts.

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Private network

A connector is a small program you run on a machine inside your network. It opens one encrypted connection out to Minitap on port 443, so there’s no port to open and no firewall rule to add. During a run, requests to the domains you choose go through it, and everything else goes straight to the internet.
Private network is part of the Enterprise plan and is turned on per workspace. Owners and admins see it under Settings → Private network once it’s on. If it isn’t there, contact the Minitap team.
1

Create a connector

A workspace owner or admin opens Settings → Private network and clicks Add connector. Give it a Name that says where it runs, and list the Domains it may reach, like api.internal.example.com or *.internal.example.com.
2

Install it inside your network

On a Mac or a Linux machine that can reach your internal servers, install the connector:
Then run the install command the dashboard shows you. It holds the connector’s token, which is shown only once, so copy it before you close the dialog:
The connector runs in the background and starts again after a reboot. The dashboard shows it online as soon as it connects.
3

Turn it on for an app

Open the app and go to App settings → General → Private network. Turn on Reach your internal servers, pick the Connector, and list the Internal domains the app needs. Each one must also be allowed on the connector’s machine.

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What to expect

  • You own the domain list. --allow on the machine decides what the connector may reach, and it refuses anything else, whatever an app asks for. To change it, run sudo minitest-connector service install --allow '…' again on the machine; the token is kept.
  • Runs wait for the connector. A run that needs the connector starts only once the connector is online, so a stopped machine never shows up as failing tests. Nothing is billed until it’s back. To check the machine, run minitest-connector service status.
  • On physical phones, every app on the phone reaches your internal domains through a VPN. If the app under test ships its own VPN, the phone falls back to a system proxy, and apps that ignore the proxy, such as most Flutter apps, can’t reach those domains. The run report shows which mode a phone used.
  • Rotate or revoke a connector from its page in Settings → Private network. Revoking it disconnects its machines within seconds and switches off every app routed through it.
From the CLI, you can read the settings and turn the private network on for an app. Connectors are created in the dashboard.
Every command and option of the connector is described in its repository on GitHub.

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IP allowlist

If your firewall only lets known addresses through, ask the Minitap team for the IP addresses to allow. A private network connector is the other way in: it needs no firewall change at all.

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Staging password

Some staging sites ask for a username and password (HTTP basic auth) in a browser popup before the page loads. Mini can’t type into that popup, but it can open the site with the credentials in the address once; the browser then keeps the sign-in for the site. Add the staging username and password to the app’s Test suite → Knowledge, and Mini uses them before it opens your URL. See what Mini knows before it starts. Use a password that only guards staging: everyone in the workspace can read Mini’s memory. Your app’s own sign-in is a separate step: Mini signs in with the test accounts you attach.

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Next steps

Web apps

Point runs at a staging or preview URL.

Test accounts and sign-in

The users Mini signs in as, once it reaches your app.

Security

How Minitap handles your workspace’s data.