Introduction to Squid and Web Caching

Who should attend:

This one-day course is designed for administrators who are new to Squid and/or Web Caching.

Prerequisites:

Attendees should already have a basic understanding of the Internet and Unix operating systems. You should already be comfortable with editing configuration files and installing software on your system. You should understand fundamentals such as hostnames, user-ids, file systems, and file permissions.

Prior knowledge of HTTP and Web Caching is not required.

Schedule and Cost

The next class has not been scheduled. If you are interested in this course, please contact training@apcs.com.au.

Cost: $500.

Payment for the class must be received before you attend the class. Classes start at 9:00 a.m. the first day and are taught in English. There is a $100 late fee if you register within one week of the class.

Course Outline:

• The World-Wide Web Architecture
  • Clients
  • Servers
  • Naming with URLs
  • Data Transfer: HTTP, FTP, SSL, Gopher
  • Characteristics of Web traffic: popularity, static vs. dynamic, content types, file sizes
• Proxy Cache Design
  • Proxy as an application-layer gateway
  • Storage of cacheable responses
  • cache hits, misses
  • cache consistency and validation
  • How to relate bandwidth, request rate, and cache size.
• Hardware for Squid
  • CPU
  • Networking
  • Disks
  • Memory
• Installing Squid
  • Getting the source code
  • Compiling for your system
  • Installing the programs
  • Running Squid for the first time
• Squid's Configuration File
  • Cache directories
  • Port numbers
  • Access controls
  • Effective user-id
  • Running Squid for real
• Configuring Clients to use the cache
  • Manual configuration (Netscape, MSIE, lynx, wget)
  • Proxy Autoconfiguration Scripts
  • Web Proxy Auto Discovery
• Monitoring Squid
  • The cache.log file
  • The access.log file
  • The store.log file
  • The cachemgr interface
  • Using the 'client' program
  • Looking for performance problems
• Squid Administration
  • Starting Squid at boot-time
  • Rotating log files
  • Analysing log files
  • Detecting and identifying problems quickly.
• Resources for additional information
  • Squid FAQ
  • squid-users email list
  • Reporting bugs