How To Build an Optimized Squid Proxy Server

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Last week I was experimenting with a Squid proxy server configuration and trying to see if I can get better performance, I still have a lot to do, but I thought it will be more interesting to publish my configuration and see if someone can take it to the next level and share his experience.

So the goal was to build two proxy node to have distributed workload, the two proxy exchange their cache informations using the ICP protocol (Internet Cache Protocol), this is an UDP based protocol that use UDP port 3130 to exchange data availability between the two or more proxy.

The same Squid proxy configuration is deployed on two host, except for the ip address which are inverted.

So here is the how to:

The installation is quite simple and can be done using the following command (I suppose you are using CentOS/Red Hat):

# yum install squid

After that, we should edit the Squid proxy configuration file to include the following directives

First thing is to specify our access list, this include any authorized host that is allowed to use the Squid proxy server.

acl localnet src
acl partner src
acl SSL_ports port 443
acl Safe_ports port 80          # http
http_access deny !Safe_ports
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
http_access deny all

“partner” is the second proxy host that is participating in the ICP exchange.

Specify the cache directory, the file system type, the size and the structure. In this case it’s an 256GB LV partition.

cache_dir aufs /cache 262144 16 256

I used aufs to avoid I/O locking.

Reserve 1GB of memory to Squid internal usage, this include, frequently used and object in transit

cache_mem 1024 MB

This parameter allow the proxy server to continue downloading the file even if the user canceled it’s request. This allow the proxy to have a partial copy in the case the user requested the object again.

quick_abort_min 1024 KB

Allow to read ahead of the user request, so the proxy have a ready copy of the object.

read_ahead_gap 512 KB

For anonymity, we can use this parameter in the configuration file. This delete the “X-Forwarded-For:” in the HTTP header request.

forwarded_for delete

Specifying this parameter in the Squid configuration file, will allow it to run under the following user.

cache_effective_user squid

Here we specify the ICP port, the allowed partner which we have configured using access list and then the cache peer that participate in the ICP exchange.

icp_port 3130
icp_access  allow  partner
cache_peer sibling 3128 3130

Note that if you change the cache storage directory or the log storage location, you should also update the SElinux context file, permission and ownership for those directories.

# chcon –R –t squid_cache_t /cache
# chown –R squid:squid /cache

I also modified the iptables configuration to allow only the proxy peer to communicate with each other using the ICP protocol.

iptables -I INPUT 4  -p udp -s -d --sport 3130 --dport 3130 -j ACCEPT

Save the iptable configuration

save iptabes configuration

After the change in the Squid proxy server configuration file, restart the service for change to take effect.

restart squid proxy server

The Squid documentation section offer a complete explanation of all the parameters you can use in your Squid proxy configuration file.

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