Squid is a full-featured web proxy cache server application which provides proxy and cache services for Hyper Text Transport
Protocol (HTTP), File Transfer Protocol (FTP), and other popular network protocols. Squid can implement caching and proxying of
Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) requests and caching of Domain Name Server (DNS) lookups, and perform transparent caching.
Squid also supports a wide variety of caching protocols, such as Internet Cache Protocol, (ICP) the Hyper Text Caching Protocol,
(HTCP) the Cache Array Routing Protocol (CARP), and the Web Cache Coordination Protocol. (WCCP)
The Squid proxy cache server is an excellent solution to a variety of proxy and caching server needs, and scales from the
branch office to enterprise level networks while providing extensive, granular access control mechanisms and monitoring of critical
parameters via the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). When selecting a computer system for use as a dedicated Squid proxy,
or caching servers, ensure your system is configured with a large amount of physical memory, as Squid maintains an in-memory cache for
increased performance.
Installation
At a terminal prompt, enter the following command to install the Squid server:
sudo apt-get install squidConfiguration
Squid is configured by editing the directives contained within the /etc/squid/squid.conf
configuration file.
The following examples illustrate some of the directives which may be modified to affect the behavior of the Squid server.
For more in-depth configuration of Squid, see the References section.
![]() | |
Prior to editing the configuration file, you should make a copy of the original file and protect it from writing so you will have the original settings as a reference, and to re-use as necessary. Copy the |
sudo cp /etc/squid/squid.conf /etc/squid/squid.conf.original
sudo chmod a-w /etc/squid/squid.conf.original
To set your Squid server to listen on TCP port 8888 instead of the default TCP port 3128, change the http_port directive as such:
http_port 8888
Change the visible_hostname directive in order to give the Squid server a specific hostname.
This hostname does not necessarily need to be the computer's hostname. In this example it is set to weezie
visible_hostname weezieAgain, Using Squid's access control, you may configure use of Internet services proxied by
Squid to be available only users with certain Internet Protocol (IP) addresses.
For example, we will illustrate access by users of the 192.168.42.0/24 subnetwork only:
Add the following to the bottom of the ACL section of your
acl fortytwo_network src 192.168.42.0/24/etc/squid/squid.conf
file:Then, add the following to the top of the http_access section of your
http_access allow fortytwo_network/etc/squid/squid.conf
file:Using the excellent access control features of Squid, you may configure use of Internet services proxied by
Squid to be available only during normal business hours. For example, we'll illustrate access by employees of a
business which is operating between 9:00AM and 5:00PM, Monday through Friday, and which uses the 10.1.42.0/42 subnetwork:
Add the following to the bottom of the ACL section of your
acl biz_network src 10.1.42.0/24/etc/squid/squid.conf
file:
acl biz_hours time M T W T F 9:00-17:00Then, add the following to the top of the http_access section of your
http_access allow biz_network biz_hours/etc/squid/squid.conf
file:
![]() | |
After making changes to the |
sudo /etc/init.d/squid restart