SquidConfiguration

Configuration

Getting basic Squid running wasn't too hard at all.

As root user edit:

/etc/squid/squid.conf

Add to the top:

visible_hostname hda.local
http_port 3128
dns_defnames on
cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid 1000 16 256
cache_access_log /var/log/squid/access.log

acl intranet src 192.168.0.0/24
http_access allow intranet

Built on top of this approach.

Start Up

Start Squid:

service squid start

Set Up Clients

In web browser, goto its settings or preferences and enter a Proxy Server using host/server URL as: hda. No username or password required.

Now when you view a web page, it stores a cached copy on the server. Then when you look at it again, it uses the cache instead of downloading it all again.

Monitor

To see if it is working watch the log file expand while browsing to new pages: tail -f /var/log/squid/access.log

Issues

• Browsing to our custom HDA domains doesn't work, e.g. http://wiki or http://calendar.
  • SOLVED: adding dns_defnames on to configuration did the trick

• Making it transparent, so clients don't need any web browser proxy server settings, is also very possible. You use iptables (also already installed and running) to forward port 80 traffic to the squid server port 3128. I tried but didn't get it working. I was sure how to remove the iptables entries, so I just turned that service off and all was back to normal.
  • Referring to TransparentProxy howto
  • And more details from the Squid FAQ and here
  • others say you can use DHCP or DNS to forward to the proxy too
  • more ipchains rules are listed here, haven't test it yet