Instal and Configure Squid Proxy Server

Squid is a full-featured web proxy cache server application, which provides proxy, and cache services for all protocols:

Squide is supported to following protocols:

Hyper Text Transport Protocol (HTTP)

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

And other popular network protocols

Squid is an internet proxy server that can be used within a network to distribute an internet connection to all the computers within the network. One central computer is connected to the internet through any means such as dial-up, cable modem, ISDN, DSL, or T1, runs squid, and thus acts as the firewall to the internet. Because it is a proxy, it has the capabilities to log all user actions such as the URLs visited. There are many features that can be configured in squid.

Squid can implement caching and proxying of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) requests and caching of Domain Name Server (DNS) lookups, and perform transparent caching. Squid also supports a wide variety of caching protocols, such as Internet Cache Protocol, (ICP) the Hyper Text Caching Protocol, (HTCP) the Cache Array Routing Protocol (CARP), and the Web Cache Coordination Protocol. (WCCP).

The Squid proxy cache server is an excellent solution to a variety of proxy and caching server needs, and scales from the branch office to enterprise level networks while providing extensive, granular access control mechanisms and monitoring of critical parameters via the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). When selecting a computer system for use as a dedicated Squid proxy, or caching servers, ensure your system is configured with a large amount of physical memory, as Squid maintains an in-memory cache for increased performance.

Type this command on your terminal(ubuntu, for other linux os command will be different)

sudo apt-get install squid

After Successfully installation, Configure the squid proxy by modifying the /etc/squid/squid.conf file. First take backup the original squid.conf file by typing this command

sudo cp /etc/squid/squid.conf /etc/squid/squid.conf.original

Squid proxy sever default TCP port is 3128. You can configure this port or better configure another port instead of default. For to configure TCP port find this line and change the port value like 8888:

http_port 8888

1.     If you have specific hostname you can configure in this like. It doesn’t metter that hostname will be same as computer’s name. if you don’t have the leave it as it is:

visible_hostname weezie

2.     Find the Access Control in squid.conf file and configure the IP Address in which you want you use the internet connection. Make sure this IP Address series should be match with you network IP series:

acl fortytwo_network src 192.168.1.0/255

Then, add the following to the top of the http_access section of your /etc/squid/squid.conf file:

http_access allow fortytwo_network

3.     Squid has excellent access control features. If you want to give internet connection proxied by Squid only for particular and particular timing like business days and hours then you can configure here. For example, you want to give services only between 9:00AM and 5:00PM, Monday through Friday:

Add this line bottom of the Access Controls section of your /etc/squid/squid.conf file:

acl biz_network src 10.1.42.0/24 acl biz_hours time M T W T F 9:00-17:00

Then, add the following to the top of the http_access section of your /etc/squid/squid.conf file:

http_access allow biz_network biz_hours

After Completing the configuration successfully, just need to be restart to reload new configuration by typing this command on your terminal:

sudo /etc/init.d/squid restart

Also you need to be check your firewall rules. The Port which you are using should be open. If port not open then run this iptables rule by typing on your terminal for 8888 port. If you are using another port just change 3128 port to your port:

Iptables -A INPUT -p tcp –dport 3128 -j ACCEPT

Now just configure client browser and test the squid proxy server.

Browser Settings:

Internet explorer: Click on Tools=>Internet Options=>Connections=>Change your Proxy Server IP and  port number

Firefox: Go to firefox configuration panel=>Advanced Tab=>Network Sub Tab=>Click on settings=> Change your proxy server ip and port.