First, what is Squid?

Squid is a proxy server for caching web pages and files supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, etc. The Squid proxy is an useful tool. It is going to reduce bandwidth consumption and improve response times by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages.

Do I need it?

Not really, you still can surf the net without it, but if you are looking to speed a bit the net, this is going to help, by storing common used files to it’s cache directory for next reuse and if the file is outdated it will be updated by the proxy.

So now let’s begin installing it.

If your Ubuntu server is running, log in through a browser at https://your-server-address:10000/. Once you are logged in, click on Servers which is on left side, and than click Squid Proxy Server. Now, on right side you can read something like this “The Squid Proxy Server administration program package can be automatically installed by Webmin. Click here to have it downloaded and installed using APT.”  Click there to download it and will be installed by Webmin.

Relax for a few minutes until this is done by Webmin, when installation finishes it is time to tell the browser to go through the proxy and proxy is going to get what the browser requested.

Setting FF

Open Firefox and click on the Tools menu and then click Options. Click Connection Settings and should see the following
In the Address box, type the IP address of the proxy server. In the Port box, type the port number that is used by the proxy server for client (by default, 3128). Select Manual Proxy Configuration and fill in the relevent field for your Proxy.

Setting IE

Open Internet Explorer and click the Tools menu, click Internet Options, click the Connections tab, and then click LAN Settings. Under Proxy server, click to select the Use a proxy server for your LAN check box. In the Address box, type the IP address of the proxy server. In the Port box, type the port number that is used by the proxy server for client (by default, 3128). Click OK to close the LAN Settings dialog box. Click OK again to close the Internet Options dialog box.

Setting Opera

Open Opera and Click Tools menu and then Preferences. Open the Advanced tab and select Network sub-category. Click the “Proxy servers” button. In the Address box, type the IP address of the proxy server. In the Port box, type the port number that is used by the proxy server for client (by default, 3128). Click OK to close the Proxy Server dialog. Click OK to finish. If all has gone well you will be able to surf without problem, but if you get a bad response from the proxy, you have to get back on Ubuntu terminal, login and type this command:

nano /etc/squid/squid.conf

This is the default conf file so we are not going through it or make a new one, just to give us access at LAN we have to add these 2 lines:

acl internal_network src your-server-address
http_access allow internal_network

To add these 2 lines press

Ctrl+W

and type

acl all src all

and then press Enter. Here you can see more closely how to add the 2 lines above, when you finish hit Ctrl+O to save any change you made.

That’s all!

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