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    SQUID proxy question

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved General pfSense Questions
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    • KOMK
      KOM
      last edited by

      Did you enable Squid with its defaults or did you twiddle various options?  If not default, what is your hard disk cache size, memory cache size and Max object size?

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      • S
        sowen
        last edited by

        Setting the alternate DNS value in the squid config may improve performance.

        This is only the case if web pages seem to load very slowly initially.

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        • B
          BlazeStar
          last edited by

          @KOM:

          Did you enable Squid with its defaults or did you twiddle various options?  If not default, what is your hard disk cache size, memory cache size and Max object size?

          I did not play with ANY setting, I just installed it and launched it.

          To completely disable it, I uninstalled it completely until I can figure out how to properly configured it.

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          • KOMK
            KOM
            last edited by

            Are you running pfSense on a slow disk?  I use Squid in a production environment and it performs well enough.

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            • H
              heper
              last edited by

              if you don't need a huge cache but simply want to use it to restrict certain things: set HD cache to zero/null and only cache in RAM

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              • B
                BlazeStar
                last edited by

                @KOM:

                Are you running pfSense on a slow disk?  I use Squid in a production environment and it performs well enough.

                I'm running pfSense on a dedicated server which has, to my humble opinion, pretty good specs :

                Dell PowerEdge T110
                Intel(R) Core(TM) i3-3220 CPU @ 3.30GHz (4 CPUs: 1 package(s) x 2 core(s) x 2 SMT threads)
                4GB Memory (1x4GB), 1600Mhz, Dual Ranked UDIMM
                500GB 7.2K RPM SATA 3Gbps 3.5in Cabled Hard Drive

                Maybe I should boost the RAM ?

                @heper:

                if you don't need a huge cache but simply want to use it to restrict certain things: set HD cache to zero/null and only cache in RAM

                I did try that… I don't have too much RAM though (4GB)

                Still same problem.

                To describe the issue:

                When I type in an address, it will take a while to load.
                Once it has loading (connected to the host, per say) it will be very fast.

                If I try to open several websites (different domain names) in the same time, it'll be catastrophically slow and some of them will even fail when loading.
                Refreshing will work.

                As soon as first connection has been established, it becomes very fast.

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                • KOMK
                  KOM
                  last edited by

                  Did you try sowen's suggestion?  I found this but it's a little old.

                  SSH in and run:

                  squidclient -p 3128 mgr:info

                  Look at the bottom for Median Service Times.  Anything look like a big delay there?

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                  • B
                    BlazeStar
                    last edited by

                    @KOM:

                    Did you try sowen's suggestion?

                    You're right I did not !! Sorry !

                    @sowen:

                    Setting the alternate DNS value in the squid config may improve performance.

                    This is only the case if web pages seem to load very slowly initially.

                    So that's exactly what's going on in my case.

                    But I don't know what to set the Alternate DNS value to!

                    Here's my config :
                    http://cl.ly/image/1S1G00373t3b
                    http://cl.ly/image/442C2W0D1b0a

                    Where EXAMPLE.COM is my real domain.

                    @KOM:

                    SSH in and run:

                    squidclient -p 3128 mgr:info

                    Look at the bottom for Median Service Times.  Anything look like a big delay there?

                    Okay I did, here's what it gives me.

                    However be aware that I had stopped the SQUID service in pfSense because everyone was complaining about delays.

                    I restarted it, and when I started to see it was getting a little bit slow, I ran the command.

                    HTTP/1.0 200 OK
                    Server: squid/3.1.22
                    Mime-Version: 1.0
                    Date: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:45:32 GMT
                    Content-Type: text/plain
                    Expires: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:45:32 GMT
                    Last-Modified: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:45:32 GMT
                    X-Cache: MISS from XXX
                    X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from XXX:3128
                    Via: 1.0 XXX (squid/3.1.22)
                    Connection: close
                    
                    Squid Object Cache: Version 3.1.22
                    Start Time:	Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:33:40 GMT
                    Current Time:	Thu, 11 Dec 2014 20:45:32 GMT
                    Connection information for squid:
                    	Number of clients accessing cache:	6
                    	Number of HTTP requests received:	271
                    	Number of ICP messages received:	0
                    	Number of ICP messages sent:	0
                    	Number of queued ICP replies:	0
                    	Number of HTCP messages received:	0
                    	Number of HTCP messages sent:	0
                    	Request failure ratio:	 0.00
                    	Average HTTP requests per minute since start:	22.8
                    	Average ICP messages per minute since start:	0.0
                    	Select loop called: 83680 times, 8.513 ms avg
                    Cache information for squid:
                    	Hits as % of all requests:	5min: 2.2%, 60min: 1.1%
                    	Hits as % of bytes sent:	5min: 2.6%, 60min: 0.5%
                    	Memory hits as % of hit requests:	5min: 0.0%, 60min: 0.0%
                    	Disk hits as % of hit requests:	5min: 100.0%, 60min: 100.0%
                    	Storage Swap size:	92158 KB
                    	Storage Swap capacity:	90.0% used, 10.0% free
                    	Storage Mem size:	252 KB
                    	Storage Mem capacity:	 3.1% used, 96.9% free
                    	Mean Object Size:	23.65 KB
                    	Requests given to unlinkd:	0
                    Median Service Times (seconds)  5 min    60 min:
                    	HTTP Requests (All):   0.09219  0.09219
                    	Cache Misses:          0.08729  0.08729
                    	Cache Hits:            6.62870  6.62870
                    	Near Hits:             0.00000  0.00000
                    	Not-Modified Replies:  0.00000  0.00000
                    	DNS Lookups:          10.14244 10.14244
                    	ICP Queries:           0.00000  0.00000
                    Resource usage for squid:
                    	UP Time:	712.384 seconds
                    	CPU Time:	1.631 seconds
                    	CPU Usage:	0.23%
                    	CPU Usage, 5 minute avg:	0.22%
                    	CPU Usage, 60 minute avg:	0.24%
                    	Process Data Segment Size via sbrk(): 0 KB
                    	Maximum Resident Size: 15544 KB
                    	Page faults with physical i/o: 0
                    Memory accounted for:
                    	Total accounted:         1713 KB
                    	memPoolAlloc calls:     92638
                    	memPoolFree calls:      94125
                    File descriptor usage for squid:
                    	Maximum number of file descriptors:   11095
                    	Largest file desc currently in use:     31
                    	Number of file desc currently in use:   18
                    	Files queued for open:                   0
                    	Available number of file descriptors: 11077
                    	Reserved number of file descriptors:   100
                    	Store Disk files open:                   0
                    Internal Data Structures:
                    	  3924 StoreEntries
                    	    63 StoreEntries with MemObjects
                    	    61 Hot Object Cache Items
                    	  3896 on-disk objects
                    
                    
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                    • KOMK
                      KOM
                      last edited by

                      Your DNS lookup times are terrible. Just put your usual DNS server in the Use alternate DNS-servers for the proxy-server box.  Save and try to use Squid again.

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                      • B
                        BlazeStar
                        last edited by

                        I added the DNS from my ISP to alternate DNS list.

                        This improved the speed dramatically and instantly.

                        I've been running SQUID with these settings for a few hours and : so far so good!

                        I think that was my problem!

                        Thanks guys for your answers!

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                        • B
                          BlazeStar
                          last edited by

                          Been running it for a few days now and that was it!

                          Added the alternate DNS and now it's lightning fast!

                          Thanks again @sowen and @KOM

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