Squid cache and file size

kikinovak · 08-12-2015, 07:29 AM

Hi,

I'm currently doing some maintenance in a network with Slackware64 14.1 on the server and Slackware 14.1 on all desktop clients. Among other things, the server is running Squid as caching and filtering proxy. The cache is configured to only use the server's RAM (maximum 1 GB) without writing anything to disk.

The Internet connection is not very fast here. When I'm running slackpkg upgrade-all on several desktop clients, some packages seem to be kept in Squid's cache, judging from the very fast download speed. On the other hand, bigger packages don't seem to be kept in the cache and are re-downloaded from the package mirror.

Is there a way to configure Squid so it also keeps bigger files in the cache? Here's my local server's squid.conf file:

Code:

# /etc/squid/squid.conf

# Nom d'hôte du serveur Squid
visible_hostname niklabox.scholae.lan

# Définitions
acl localnet src 192.168.2.0/24 # Réseau local
acl SSL_ports port 443
acl Safe_ports port 80          # http
acl Safe_ports port 21          # ftp
acl Safe_ports port 443         # https
acl Safe_ports port 70          # gopher
acl Safe_ports port 210         # wais
acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535  # unregistered ports
acl Safe_ports port 280         # http-mgmt
acl Safe_ports port 488         # gss-http
acl Safe_ports port 591         # filemaker
acl Safe_ports port 777         # multiling http
acl CONNECT method CONNECT

# Règles d'accès
http_access deny !Safe_ports
http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
http_access allow localhost manager
http_access deny manager
http_access allow localnet
http_access allow localhost
http_access deny all

# Port du proxy
http_port 3128 transparent

# Taille du cache dans la RAM
cache_mem 1024 MB

# Emplacement et taille du cache sur le disque
# cache_dir ufs /var/cache/squid 256 16 256
# cache_dir ufs /var/cache/squid 4096 16 256

# Fichier PID
pid_filename /var/run/squid/squid.pid

# Vidage système
coredump_dir /var/log/squid/cache/squid

# Durée de vie des fichiers sans date d'expiration
refresh_pattern ^ftp:           1440    20%     10080
refresh_pattern ^gopher:        1440    0%      1440
refresh_pattern -i (/cgi-bin/|\?) 0     0%      0
refresh_pattern .               0       20%     4320

# SquidGuard
url_rewrite_program /usr/bin/squidGuard -c /etc/squidguard/squidguard.conf
url_rewrite_children 5

Cheers,

Niki

Mark Pettit · 08-12-2015, 07:43 AM

At the risk of insulting your intelligence (and I know you're a smart fellow ...:-), why are you only you using a memory cache ? Surely the solution is to use a disk cache of (say ) 10 GB !

pan64 · 08-12-2015, 07:55 AM

squid config processing is a bit buggy (or at least I found it annoying), hard to configure cache sizes.
see cache_mem, maximum_object_size_in_memory and other size related config parameters (like cache_dir, maximum_object_size).

kikinovak · 08-12-2015, 10:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mark Pettit

At the risk of insulting your intelligence (and I know you're a smart fellow ...:-), why are you only you using a memory cache ? Surely the solution is to use a disk cache of (say ) 10 GB !

I'm doing this for two reasons.

Cache operations to and from RAM are sensibly faster.
With approximately 100 simultaneous user connections, disks would be working constantly, so this is to reduce disk operation.

Cheers,

Niki

kikinovak · 08-12-2015, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan64

squid config processing is a bit buggy (or at least I found it annoying), hard to configure cache sizes.
see cache_mem, maximum_object_size_in_memory and other size related config parameters (like cache_dir, maximum_object_size).

These look like the parameters I have to edit. I'll give it a try tomorrow. Thanks!