Squid Cache proxy – a quick setup guide

This post gives the steps to quickly setup squid proxy and make it up and caching in minutes. There are also some tips & tricks on squid. My squid proxy server runs on OpenSuSE 11.1.

opensuse:~ # cat /etc/SuSE-release 
openSUSE 11.1 (i586) 
VERSION = 11.1 
opensuse:~ #

To download “squid” packages on opensuse, use zypper. The Zypper is a package/patch management tool in Suse, which works similar to yum.

opensuse:~ # zypper install squid3 squidGuard yast2-squid 
Loading repository data... 
Reading installed packages... 
Resolving package dependencies... 

The following NEW packages are going to be installed:

libboost_regex1_36_0 squid3 squidGuard yast2-squid 

Check the installed Squid rpms.

opensuse:~ # rpm -qa | grep squid 
squidGuard-1.3-57.63 
squid3-3.0.STABLE10-2.11 
yast2-squid-2.17.5-1.11 
opensuse:~ #

The default squid configuration file is /etc/squid/squid.conf. The below configuration shows my setup, where I have changed the proxy port number & the cache directory. Make sure you have the cache directory created with the owner as squid.

opensuse:~ # grep -v ^# /etc/squid/squid.conf | grep -v ^$ 
acl manager proto cache_object 
acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/32 
<snip> http_port 8080 hierarchy_stoplist cgi-bin ? cache_dir ufs /home/cache/squid 200 16 256 access_log /var/log/squid/access.log squid 
coredump_dir /var/cache/squid 
opensuse:~ #

Start Squid service using the below command.

opensuse:~ # service squid start 
Starting WWW-proxy squid                                         done 
opensuse:~ #

Now set your client browsers to access internet thorough this proxy. (opensuse:8080)

To check the squid detailed cache information, you can use the command “squidclient”, as described below

opensuse:~ # squidclient -p 8080 cache_object://localhost/info 
Squid Object Cache: Version 3.0.STABLE10 
Connection information for squid: 
        Number of clients accessing cache:      1 
        Number of HTTP requests received:       0 
        Number of ICP messages received:        0 
        Number of ICP messages sent:    0 
        Number of queued ICP replies:   0 
        Number of HTCP messages received:       0 
        Number of HTCP messages sent:   0 
        Request failure ratio:   0.00 
        Average HTTP requests per minute since start:   -0.0 
        Average ICP messages per minute since start:    -0.0 
        Select loop called: 23738 times, -143987.578 ms avg 
<snip>

opensuse:~ # squidclient -p 8080 cache_object://localhost/info | grep -A10 ^Cache 
Cache information for squid: 
        Hits as % of all requests:      5min: 0.0%, 60min: 0.0% 
        Hits as % of bytes sent:        5min: -0.0%, 60min: -0.0% 
        Memory hits as % of hit requests:       5min: 0.0%, 60min: 0.0% 
        Disk hits as % of hit requests: 5min: 0.0%, 60min: 0.0% 
        Storage Swap size:      6324 KB 
        Storage Swap capacity:   3.1% used, 96.9% free 
        Storage Mem size:       116 KB 
        Storage Mem capacity:    1.4% used, 98.6% free 
        Mean Object Size:       14.85 KB 
        Requests given to unlinkd:      0 
opensuse:~ #