title: squid compilation and configuration for performance
body: <p>I'm running Squid 3.3.8 on a Cavium MIPS processor, Cavium Linux (Debian).  No caching, strictly forwarding with 'request_header_add' header insertion.  On a 2- or 4- core processor, it's using one entire core for what I consider a light load.</p>
  
  <p>Question is: what are the most critical compilation directives to use with 'configure' and squid.conf settings to maximize performance in a non-caching server?  All traffic is being proxied to a parent proxy service.</p>
  
  <p>Basically, I'm wondering if I've made some bonehead error of omission or commission.  I've tried to turn off anything I don't need, but I seem to have nailed one foot to the floor.</p>
  
  <p>for configure script:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    --enable-linux-filter          \
      --enable-poll                  \
      --enable-epoll                 \
      --enable-kqueue                \
      --disable-ident-lookups        \
      --disable-ident                \
      --disable-auth                 \
      --disable-auth-basic           \
      --disable-auth-ntlm            \
      --disable-auth-negotiate       \
      --disable-auth-digest          \
      --disable-ipv6                 \
      --disable-translation          \
      --disable-auto-locale          \
      --disable-snmp                 \
      --without-expat                \
      --without-libxml2              \
      --without-libcap               \
      --disable-linux-tproxy         \
      --disable-external-acl-helpers \
      --disable-wccp                 \
      --disable-wccpv2               \
      --disable-eui                  \
      --disable-htcp                 \
      --disable-loadable-modules     \
      --without-netfilter-conntrack  \
      --enable-disk-io=no            \
      --enable-storeio=no            \
      --enable-removal-policies=no   \
      --enable-follow-x-forwarded-for=no \
      --disable-http-violations      \
  </code></pre>
  
  <p><strong>squid.conf:</strong></p>
  
  <pre><code>acl localnet src 0.0.0.0/0
  cache_peer proxy.myproxy.net parent 8080 0 no-query default
  never_direct allow all
  request_header_add HEADER1 header1 localnet
  request_header_add HEADER2 header2 localnet
  cache deny all
  http_access allow localnet
  http_port 3128 intercept
  </code></pre>