University of Birmingham

BEAR GitLab (self-hosted, /api/v4)

A GitLab instance the University runs itself on the BEAR (Birmingham Environment for Academic Research) estate — gitlab.bham.ac.uk resolves through proxy-vrrp-1.bear.bham.ac.uk to 147.188.x, Birmingham address space, not to gitlab.com or any hosted GitLab tenancy. The GitLab REST API is live at /api/v4 and GET /api/v4/projects answers keyless with real public research projects; /api/v4/version returns 401 as expected for an unauthenticated caller. The deployment is the institution's; the API contract is GitLab's product surface, so no OpenAPI is saved here. Worth recording precisely because it inverts the usual pattern: the web UI is entirely gated — /, /explore, /explore/projects and /help all 302 to /users/sign_in — while GET /api/v4/projects answers an anonymous caller with real project records. The institution publishes no documentation for this surface; /help is behind the sign-in wall, so no Documentation pointer is claimed.

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API entry from apis.yml

apis.yml Raw ↑ 
aid: university-of-birmingham:gitlab
name: BEAR GitLab (self-hosted, /api/v4)
x-operator: institution
description: 'A GitLab instance the University runs itself on the BEAR (Birmingham Environment for Academic
  Research) estate — gitlab.bham.ac.uk resolves through proxy-vrrp-1.bear.bham.ac.uk to 147.188.x, Birmingham
  address space, not to gitlab.com or any hosted GitLab tenancy. The GitLab REST API is live at /api/v4
  and GET /api/v4/projects answers keyless with real public research projects; /api/v4/version returns
  401 as expected for an unauthenticated caller. The deployment is the institution''s; the API contract
  is GitLab''s product surface, so no OpenAPI is saved here. Worth recording precisely because it inverts
  the usual pattern: the web UI is entirely gated — /, /explore, /explore/projects and /help all 302 to
  /users/sign_in — while GET /api/v4/projects answers an anonymous caller with real project records. The
  institution publishes no documentation for this surface; /help is behind the sign-in wall, so no Documentation
  pointer is claimed.'
humanURL: https://gitlab.bham.ac.uk/
baseURL: https://gitlab.bham.ac.uk/api/v4
tags:
- Research Computing
- Source Control
- GitLab
- Self-Hosted