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I am trying to configure Squid as a caching server. I have a LAN where The webserver (apache) is at squid is at and my client is at The problem is, when I look at Squid's access log, all I see are TCP_MISS messages. It seems Squid is not caching at all. I checked that the cache directory has all proper permissions. What else can go wrong here? Here is my squid config:

acl manager proto cache_object
acl localhost src ::1
acl to_localhost dst ::1
acl SSL_ports port 443
acl Safe_ports port 80
acl Safe_ports port 21
acl Safe_ports port 443
acl Safe_ports port 70
acl Safe_ports port 210
acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535
acl Safe_ports port 280
acl Safe_ports port 488
acl Safe_ports port 591
acl Safe_ports port 777
http_access allow all
http_access allow manager localhost
http_access deny manager
http_access deny !Safe_ports
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
http_access allow localhost
http_access deny all
http_port 3128 accel defaultsite=cona-proxy vhost
cache_peer parent 80 0 no-query originserver login=PAS name=webserver
cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid3 100 16 256
coredump_dir /var/spool/squid3
refresh_pattern ^ftp:   1440    20% 10080
refresh_pattern ^gopher:    1440    0%  1440
refresh_pattern .   0   20% 4320
always_direct allow all
acl server_users dstdomain cona-proxy
http_access allow server_users
cache_peer_access webserver allow server_users
cache_peer_access webserver deny all

In all machines, cona-proxy points to (added that in /etc/hosts)

Output of curl -v

* About to connect() to (#0)
* Trying connected
> GET / HTTP/1.1
> User-Agent: curl/7.22.0 (i686-pc-linux-gnu) libculr/7.22.0 OpneSSL/1.0.1 zlib/ libidn/1.23 librtmp/2.3
> Host:
> Accept: */*
< HTTP/1.1 202 OK
< Date Mon, 02 Jul 2012 05:48:50 GMT
< Server: Apache/2.2.22 (Ubuntu)
< Last-Modified: Tue, 19 Jun 2012 23:04:25 GMT
< ETag: "27389-b1-4c2db4dc2c182"
< Accept_Ranges: bytes
< Content-Length: 177
< Vary: Accept-Encoding
< Content-Type: text/html
< X-Pad: avoid browser bug
<p>This is the default web page for the server.</p>
* Connection #0 to host left intact
* Closing connection #0
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When you test make sure that the test pages are allowing caching. E.g. SSL pages are not cached. –  Mircea Vutcovici Jun 30 '12 at 2:36
For now I just have Apache's default "It works" page. That should be cached fine, I think. –  Abhishek Chanda Jun 30 '12 at 2:40
I should be adding your squid config. –  Christopher Perrin Jun 30 '12 at 3:05
Added squid config –  Abhishek Chanda Jun 30 '12 at 5:09
In the sample request you posted, the content is not cacheable. –  symcbean Jul 8 '12 at 21:05
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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

In your config you have missed this lines:

acl myhosts src (your internal network/netmask)
http_access allow myhosts


Your web server is not your cache_peer. Please, remove this line from your config file. Squid has for interoperability between caches another type of protocol (ICP), which apache don't know.

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my internal network is When I added these two lines, my browser says proxy server is refusing connections –  Abhishek Chanda Jul 3 '12 at 19:46
If you're using addresses etc., your network is not, but –  Jan Marek Jul 4 '12 at 5:23
Or probably –  Christopher Perrin Jul 6 '12 at 12:38
It was my first advice, see my answer... :-) –  Jan Marek Jul 7 '12 at 17:58
Sure! Sorry! It was very late/early when I posted it! –  Christopher Perrin Jul 7 '12 at 18:08
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In my experience, the 3 most common reasons why Squid refuses to cache content are:

  • Cache directory permissions, and you have taken care of that. Good :)
  • http_access, but it's not your case, because you are seeing TCP_MISS lines in your access.log
  • refresh_pattern directives

refresh_pattern directive(s) control how Squid considers objects fresh or stale, particularly in relation to the way your browser makes the requests, and which cache control HTTP headers are exchanged.

The refresh_pattern lines you have in your configuration are Squid's default lines. However, I just installed Squid on Ubuntu 2 weeks ago, and with those defaults, it caches almost nothing.

Squid's documentation about refresh_pattern should explain the meaning of each line, but I actually can't understand what that documentation means. And apparently I'm not alone :)

I would suggest you to add one or more of the following patterns and test specific files/URLs until you're satisfied. Example:


With this one, you're telling Squid to consider all icons/pictures cacheable for at least 1 hour to a maximum of half a day. Your browser might send HTTP requests with particular cache headers that cause Squid to reply with a TCP_MISS anyway. To force cached replies, even breaking client expectations, you can do this:

refresh_pattern -i \.(gif|png|jpg|jpeg|ico)$ 3600 90% 43200 override-expire ignore-no-cache ignore-no-store ignore-private

Same goes for bigger movie/audio/iso files:

refresh_pattern -i \.(mp[34g]|swf|wav|...)$ 43200 90% 432000

If anything else fails, use a mighty hammer :) but I do not recommend this:

refresh_pattern . 3600    80%     14400

with which you're telling Squid that it can cache everything for at least 1 hour. However, this will almost certainly break dynamic applications. Use it if the server you're trying to cache is mostly composed of static content.

Also, don't forget maximum_object_size. By default, it's 20Mb. If the objects you're trying to cache are bigger than that, Squid won't cache them. I upped it 10x, to 200Mb. YMMV.

maximum_object_size 204800 KB

BTW, your cache_peer line is incorrect, because it points to Apache. A cache_peer in squid speak is another squid instance higher up in the cache hierarchy, that usually used to be an ISP cache server in the old days. Just remove that line.

And good luck :)

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