How to Configure Squid Proxy Server

The squid proxy server is very easy to install and configure. All squid needs to run is the range of IP addresses that are allowed to use the proxy server and the port that the squid proxy server is listening on. After that, browsers allowed to use the squid proxy server will be able to surf the Internet through the squid proxy server.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• IP subnet information for the internal network that will be accessing squid

1. The installation instructions depend on the operating system. For the popular Red Hat based Linux distributions, the command to install is "yum install squid".

2. Add the IP subnet to squid's acl (access control list) by editing /etc/squid/squid.conf. For example, to include the 192.168.1.0 subnet as part of acl list "mynetwork", the command inside squid.conf is "acl mynetwork src 192.168.1.0/255.255.255.0".

3. Allow the acl list to be used by the squid proxy server. The command to allow acl list "myaccess" to use the squid proxy server is "http_access allow mynetwork".

4. Define the port to be used by squid. The default port is 3128. To change the default port to 2999, the command is "http_port 2999".

5. Start squid. The command to start squid is "/etc/rc.d/init.d/squid start".

6. Test squid by configuring a web browser to use the squid proxy server. If it does not work, make sure the browser has the correct port and IP address for the squid proxy server.

Tips & Warnings

• Do not enable access to everybody. Otherwise, unscrupulous hackers will use the squid proxy server to hide their activities and use up your bandwidth.

Resources

• Squid Proxy Server Homepage