So Cal Free Net.org

Once you have the laptop running correctly, you're ready to get squid configured. We want to use squid as a 'transparent proxy'. This means that users won't have to do any configuration on their machine to use squid and benefit from the proxy. And, alternatively, users won't be able to avoid the proxy, and hence we get maximum benefit of the cache (more info, and HowTo).

The squid configuration file for debian is found at /etc/squid.conf. The vast majority of the values can be left as is, at least until you start tuning squid. Here are some settings we changed from the defaults:

httpd_accel_host virtual
httpd_accel_port 80

httpd_accel_with_proxy on

httpd_accel_uses_host_header on

These few lines should get squid going enough to test. Issue the command /etc/init.d/squid restart to force it to re-read its settings (though maybe a SIGHUP would do the same thing more elegantly?).

Now squid should be working. You can test basic functionality by setting the proxy settings of your web browser to point directly to the squid proxy. If you issue the command /tail -f /var/log/squid/access.log you should be able to see the pages you're visiting being logged. (Use Ctrl-C to break out of the tail).

Next up is how to change the firewall / gateway settings to force users to use the proxy.

We did some minor tuning with these settings:

maximum_object_size 8192 kb