Any recommendations for an internet caching proxy server?

[Swanny]

Hello all,

I'm working on the network for my fraternity. The internet is a times pretty slow, so I thought that putting in a caching proxy server might help performance, since many guys are looking at the same (university) sites. I'm looking for suggestions of a good, stable, free proxy program. It will probably be run on a Mac G4 (Linux) dedicated to the job (because we have one sitting around).

Let me know if you need more information. Right now the internet traffic from 51 guys is all going through 3 switches and straight into our Sonicwall Router/Firewall. DHCP is done by our Win 2003 domain server.


Thanks,
Swan

 

[EatSpam]

Look at Squid maybe... its free and runs on Linux.

 

[blemoine]

Try ipcop. that is a good linux based firewall/squid server.

 

[watts3000]

Squid is going to be your best choice

 

[spidey07]

another vote for squid.

 

[Swanny]

What about performance? Will a G4 with 256Mb RAM be capable enough to run Linux and Squid without decreasing internet performance? I just want to make sure that putting the proxy in won't decrease performance more than it increases it.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: Swanny
What about performance? Will a G4 with 256Mb RAM be capable enough to run Linux and Squid without decreasing internet performance? I just want to make sure that putting the proxy in won't decrease performance more than it increases it.

caching is a very simple and undemanding application unless you have 10s of thousands of users.

 

[n0cmonkey]

The more ram the better, but I'd trust spidey07's judgment.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
The more ram the better, but I'd trust spidey07's judgment.

well yeah, that's true. more ram = good.

I believe squid even has transparent proxying.

 

[randal]

yea, it does transparent proxying. Back when shoestring budgets were my style, I had a k6-400 with 512MB of ram running freebsd/ipfw/natd/squid for ~500 folks at an event one time. Ran without a problem and really really helped to make the most of the limited (<1mbps) available bandwidth.

 

[Rookie]

another vote for squid.

 

[Swanny]

Is any flavor of Linux better for a server app like this than any other? I'd like to stick to a free one.

 

[EatSpam]

Originally posted by: Swanny
Is any flavor of Linux better for a server app like this than any other? I'd like to stick to a free one.

I use Fedora Core for everything. I think its a fairly easy distro to work with. I believe there is a PPC version that will work on your G4.

 

[Garion]

I deal with proxies all day long as a professoin - Squid is a good one. I haven't ever used it in transparent mode but if you can, that's the preferred solution.

There are actually some specialized Linux distributions out there that have Squid pre-configured along with some other tools like traffic shapers, etc. which you can use to prevent P2P apps from eating up your entire bandwidth and not leaving anything for browsing. It's definitely worth doing.

To be honest, running Squid on a G4 is way overkill. Go out and spend $250-$300 on a generic PC that you can dedicate to this purpose. Decent processor, 512 MB RAM, 7200 RPM hard drive of a reasonable size (200+ GB) and you're good.

- G

 

[cmetz]

squid+linux is the standard solution to this problem.

Cache servers don't help you as much as you think. Not enough locality and too much dynamic content mean the cache server isn't often going to do enough better than your local client disk cache. I think at the end of the day, you probably just don't have enough bandwidth, and unless you solve that problem your efforts are mostly futile.

 

[nweaver]

I would go for a minimalistic install, DSL (not sure if it has ppc) Debian net install, maybe Ubuntu server. I've not touched FC for a while, but it always leaves me feeling bloated.

 

[Swanny]

Originally posted by: Garion
I deal with proxies all day long as a professoin - Squid is a good one. I haven't ever used it in transparent mode but if you can, that's the preferred solution.

There are actually some specialized Linux distributions out there that have Squid pre-configured along with some other tools like traffic shapers, etc. which you can use to prevent P2P apps from eating up your entire bandwidth and not leaving anything for browsing. It's definitely worth doing.

To be honest, running Squid on a G4 is way overkill. Go out and spend $250-$300 on a generic PC that you can dedicate to this purpose. Decent processor, 512 MB RAM, 7200 RPM hard drive of a reasonable size (200+ GB) and you're good.

- G

I'm doing it on the G4, 256Mb RAM, unknown 20Gb HD because I had one sitting in the server room not being used.

Do you have any links/names of the specialized distros you mentioned?

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: cmetz
squid+linux is the standard solution to this problem.

Cache servers don't help you as much as you think. Not enough locality and too much dynamic content mean the cache server isn't often going to do enough better than your local client disk cache. I think at the end of the day, you probably just don't have enough bandwidth, and unless you solve that problem your efforts are mostly futile.

Aye.

It really depends on the situation though..still, yeah, it's not all that it is cut out to be unless you gave a gazillion users

 

[Goosemaster]

Originally posted by: Swanny

Originally posted by: Garion
I deal with proxies all day long as a professoin - Squid is a good one. I haven't ever used it in transparent mode but if you can, that's the preferred solution.

There are actually some specialized Linux distributions out there that have Squid pre-configured along with some other tools like traffic shapers, etc. which you can use to prevent P2P apps from eating up your entire bandwidth and not leaving anything for browsing. It's definitely worth doing.

To be honest, running Squid on a G4 is way overkill. Go out and spend $250-$300 on a generic PC that you can dedicate to this purpose. Decent processor, 512 MB RAM, 7200 RPM hard drive of a reasonable size (200+ GB) and you're good.

- G

I'm doing it on the G4, 256Mb RAM, unknown 20Gb HD because I had one sitting in the server room not being used.

Do you have any links/names of the specialized distros you mentioned?

astaro is a linux firewall os that comes with squid. All graphical too