Re: Cisco Cache Director (Was RE: Does Squid beat the rest? )

I got a new idea I haven't seen on the list...

Transparent proxying has a number of disavantages, that we all know of,
but one problem with proxies is to get the correct information to the
users.

Why not redirect all traffic that is sent directly to port 80 to a
single server giving a short message describing how to configure the
proxy settings. I think this will keep everyone happy.

* Network admins know that everything goes througth the proxy/cache.
* Users always get the information on how to configure the proxy
settings when needed.
* The support-line is not bothered with questions on how to configure
proxying.
* All gain from a higher hit ratio in the caches.

For those of us that don't remember the disadvantages of transparent
proxying:
* Only the IP address is known. Possible to search the request for a
Host: header but this is a bit unreliable (not much in reality).
* Only well known ports can be supported. Basically only port 80, since
other ports might be used for other protocols/services.
* The client is required to do DNS queries.

---
Henrik Nordström
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
> I really think this kind of transparent approach is half-assed, no one has
> a problem setting up mailhosts, users can just cope and admins can block
> port 80.