
Squid QUICKSTART

This document is intended only for people who want to get Squid running
quickly It is not a substitute for the real documentation.  Squid has
many features, but only a few of them are useful at the beginning.  Use
this only if you have quite a simple setup.

After you retrieved, compiled and installed the Squid software (see
INSTALL in the same directory), you have to configure the squid.conf
file. This is the list of the values you *need* to change, because no
sensible defaults could be defined. Do not touch the other variables
for now.  We assume you have installed Squid in the default location:
/usr/local/squid

Uncomment and edit the following lines in /usr/local/squid/etc/squid.conf:

==============================================================================

acl, http_access

    Access control lists.  This is important because it prevents people
    from stealing your network resources.

    Edit the "localnet" ACL definition to be your LAN network address
    ranges in CIDR format. For instance:

        acl localnet src 192.168.10.0/24

    Add any other ACLs and edit the http_access lines to match your policy
    requirements for use of the proxy. See Squid FAQ for more details.

cache_mgr

    Put here the e-mail address of the manager.

==============================================================================

Some configuration lines which are optional but may be needed.

visible_hostname

    The publicly visible host name advertised for the cache. This will
    be used for URLs generated by Squid for clients to fetch certain
    objects from.

cache_effective_user

    If building your own squid; use ./configure --with-default-user=X

    You must start Squid as root, with a safe user and group to run
    as after startup (typically "nobody" and "nogroup").  Do not use
    "root", for security reasons.

cache_dir ufs /usr/local/squid/var/cache 100 16 256

    Add here (first number, here 100) the amount of hard disk space 
    (in megabytes) to devote to caching.
    The default is to store files in 256 MB of memory instead of disk

    Linux :  use aufs instead of ufs
    BSD   :  use diskd instead of ufs

cache_mem 256 MB

    How much memory to allocate for cached files in-memory.
    The default is shown.

cache_peer, never_direct/always_direct

    If you have a parent cache, put it here.  The administrators of the
    parent cache typically provided you with instructions.  You should
    always ask permission before adding a parent cache. See also the
    never_direct/always_direct directives.


==============================================================================

After editing squid.conf to your liking, run Squid from the command
line TWICE:

To create any disk cache_dir configured:
    % /usr/local/squid/sbin/squid -z

To start squid:
    % /usr/local/squid/sbin/squid 

Check in the cache.log (/usr/local/squid/var/logs/cache.log) that
everything is all right.

Once Squid created all its files (it can take several minutes on some
systems), test it with echoping or a regular Web client. By default,
your Squid will run on port 3128. See the Squid FAQ for more details.

Once you have Squid working from the command line, tell your Unix to
start Squid at startup (it depends heavily on the Unix you use, you'll
typically have to modify something in a /etc/rc_something).

==============================================================================

/*
 * Copyright (C) 1996-2026 The Squid Software Foundation and contributors
 *
 * Squid software is distributed under GPLv2+ license and includes
 * contributions from numerous individuals and organizations.
 * Please see the COPYING and CONTRIBUTORS files for details.
 */

This quick start file written by:
    Stephane Bortzmeyer and Duane Wessels.
