Re: Default script doesn't work...?

On Mon, Sep 20, 1999 at 10:41:30PM -0400, Jim Gruen wrote:
> My high school recently bought a proxy server box for $3000, but I want
> them to send it back, since all it is is a cheap FreeBSD box (probably
> running Squid for all I know), while I can do the same thing with Linux
> for free. So I set up Linux on another computer and got both ethernet
> cards up and running.

  Remember, what the school was paying for is probably about $2000
worth of hardware and hardware assembly, and about $1000 worth of
software assembly, i.e. getting it all configured properly to work.
There's nothing wrong with your approach, and I commend it, but it
definitely does mean putting in some effort setting up and maintaining
it.

  Also, just to make sure you're aware, Squid *only* proxies for HTTP,
and for web browsers configured to proxy FTP via HTTP. If there were
other types of proxies included in that packaged server (FTP, telnet,
RealAudio, whatever) you're going to have to install them separately.

 
> Confirmed that with ifconfig. Great. Installed
> Squid from the Debian package. Wonderful. But I can't get it to work!
> In desperation, I went to the Squid site and downloaded the "this
> squid.conf will always work but the security is terrible" file, but even
> that didn't work. What could I possibly be doing wrong?

  There's a whole list of things you should review in squid.conf, and
some should probably *always* be configured for your system, like cache
directory and hostname; your best bet is to go through it line by line
seeing what seems to make sense. It's not a naive-user-friendly
install yet.

  Symptoms of what's not working would be helpful. Doesn't run? Runs
but doesn't allow connections? Allows connections but doesn't cache?
What's going into the log files?

The most common mistakes getting started are probably something like:

  No cache directory or invalid directory configured in squid.conf;

  Running squid with the wrong user ID, hence no permission to access
  the cache directory;

  Didn't run "squid -z" to clear/create cache directories, or
  interrupted it before it finished;

  Configured for a different port than you're trying to connect on;

  Not starting it as root so no permission to open the port number (if
  you picked a low-numbered port);

  Setting up access control lists which deny all users/IP addresses
  access to connect.

  If you try to rule out all these problems, then you'll probably
either find you have solved it, or have a much better idea what you
need to ask.
  -- Clifton

-- 
 Clifton Royston  --  LavaNet Systems Architect --  cliftonr@lava.net
        "An absolute monarch would be absolutely wise and good.  
           But no man is strong enough to have no interest.  
             Therefore the best king would be Pure Chance.  
              It is Pure Chance that rules the Universe; 
          therefore, and only therefore, life is good." - AC