Proxy Server Configuration

Abstract

The squid proxy server is very useful for a local network accessing a lot of web pages through a slow, or relatively slow connection. It maintains a cache of most visited pages so that they don't need to be retrieved again from the Internet if requested by different users.

First of all you need to choose a port for the proxy to listen to requests on. Users will have to configure their web browsers to use this port as the proxy port and your server name as the proxy server.

Figure 8.11. Choose the Cache Sizes

Choose the Cache Sizes

Depending on your machine's available memory, you can allocate more or less to the Proxy. The bigger the memory cache, the fewer disk accesses on the server. Depending on your available disk size you can allocate more or less room for cached pages. The more space, the less accesses to the Internet.

In next step, three access levels are available for clients wishing to use the proxy:

Figure 8.12. Restrict Access to a Particular Sub-network

Restrict Access to a Particular Sub-network

If you have previously chosen the Local Network access policy, you can choose here to restrict even more the access to a particular subnetwork or domain. Enter your choice from the following suggestions.

Finally, If your server itself has access to another bigger proxy connected to the Internet, you can choose here to Define an upper level proxy to which requests will be forwarded. If so, the next step will ask you for the name and port of that server.