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    Improve Custom refresh pattern

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Cache/Proxy
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    • KOMK
      KOM
      last edited by

      So why use squid?

      I use it as a filtering platform for squidguard.

      Various web content are in videos

      Caching videos is pointless unless everyone is watching the same ones.

      I have seen commercial products that take squid and heavily modify it with all kinds of custom stuff, and they claim they can cache almost everything.

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      • V
        Valeriy
        last edited by

        I use squid for caching, it saves bandwidth for Microsoft Updates and Apple updates + SquidGuard as Ad+Malware+porn filter

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        • KOMK
          KOM
          last edited by

          it saves bandwidth for Microsoft Updates

          I have yet to see a working config with squid and WU.  Most people give up and use WSUS.

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          • V
            Valeriy
            last edited by

            I cannt use WSUS, PCs are not under my control.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • KOMK
              KOM
              last edited by

              If you have a working squid config that caches WU for Win7-10 clients, I'd love to see it.

              JonathanLeeJ 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • D
                danbak365
                last edited by

                These refresh pattern made a big difference on my WI-fi network.
                Since I started using it my clients have been very happy with the speed.
                Even though, now it seems like they need some update, I still appreciate this well done job.
                Thanks

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                • A
                  aGeekhere
                  last edited by

                  You can use squidlite to check if the refresh pattens are improving the hit rate. I have found that the comodo antivirus updates were caching ( cannot retest at the moment) and so did window updates. The best thing is to test if the hit ratio is improving.

                  Never Fear, A Geek is Here!

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                  • S
                    saluto
                    last edited by

                    How did he do that?
                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18QSf6jb1eM

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                    • V
                      Valeriy
                      last edited by

                      @KOM

                      Here are changes made to squid.conf (or through GUI on pfsense in corresponding custom fields)
                      that allows caching of Windows Update for me:

                      
                      acl Windows_Update dstdomain windowsupdate.microsoft.com
                      acl Windows_Update dstdomain .update.microsoft.com
                      acl Windows_Update dstdomain download.windowsupdate.com
                      acl Windows_Update dstdomain www.download.windowsupdate.com
                      acl Windows_Update dstdomain au.download.windowsupdate.com
                      acl Windows_Update dstdomain bg.v4.pr.dl.ws.microsoft.com
                      range_offset_limit 200 MB Windows_Update
                      quick_abort_min 1000 KB
                      quick_abort_max 5000 KB
                      quick_abort_pct 80
                      request_body_max_size 0 KB
                      
                      refresh_pattern -i .*windowsupdate.com/.*\.(cab|exe)                     259200 100% 259200 ignore-no-store ignore-reload reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern -i .*update.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|dll|msi|psf)                  259200 100% 259200 ignore-no-store ignore-reload reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern -i windows.com/.*\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|[ap]sf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip) 4320 80% 43200 reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern windowsupdate.com/.*\.(cab|exe|dll|msi|psf) 10080 100% 43200 reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern download.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|dll|msi|psf) 10080 100% 43200 reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern www.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|dll|msi|psf) 10080 100% 43200 reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern au.download.windowsupdate.com/.*\.(cab|exe|dll|msi|psf) 4320 100% 43200 reload-into-ims
                      refresh_pattern bg.v4.pr.dl.ws.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|dll|msi|psf) 4320 100% 43200 reload-into-ims
                      
                      cache_mem 15000 MB 
                      # Should be less than 50% of avail. RAM
                      
                      maximum_object_size_in_memory 5000000 KB 
                      #should be less than cache_mem 
                      
                      memory_replacement_policy heap LFUDA
                      cache_replacement_policy heap LFUDA
                      
                      minimum_object_size 1000 KB
                      #Do not store very small object on disk
                      
                      maximum_object_size 5000 MB 
                      #should be less or equal to maximum_object_size_in_memory
                      
                      

                      Here is output for today access.log of squid (number of HITS):
                      cat  /var/squid/logs/access.log | grep HIT | grep windowsupdate -c
                      2860
                      cat /var/squid/logs/access.log | grep HIT | grep microsoft.com -c
                      19128

                      Here is output for today access.log of squid (number of MISSes):
                      cat /var/squid/logs/access.log | grep MISS | grep windowsupdate -c
                      61834
                      cat /var/squid/logs/access.log | grep MISS | grep microsoft.com -c
                      55567

                      I had to rebuild my disk cache 2 days ago, so I assume not everything is cached yet. Or some of my settings needs improvement…

                      It might not be ideal setup.
                      If you have some comments, improvements, please let me know.

                      Regards,

                      Valeriy

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • S
                        saluto
                        last edited by

                        How did your dynamic cache get now?

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • V
                          Valeriy
                          last edited by

                          @saluto:

                          How did your dynamic cache get now?

                          It is good.
                          This is result for yesterday:

                          
                          [2.3.3-DEVELOPMENT]/var/squid/logs: cat /var/squid/logs/access.log.2 | grep MISS | grep microsoft.com -c
                          96270
                          [2.3.3-DEVELOPMENT]/var/squid/logs: cat /var/squid/logs/access.log.2 | grep HIT | grep microsoft.com -c
                          21177
                          (18% HITS vs. 82% MISS)
                          [2.3.3-DEVELOPMENT]/var/squid/logs: cat /var/squid/logs/access.log.2 | grep HIT | grep windowsupdate -c
                          8352
                          [2.3.3-DEVELOPMENT]/var/squid/logs: cat /var/squid/logs/access.log.2 | grep MISS | grep windowsupdate -c
                          34794
                          (19% HITS vs. 81% MISS)
                          
                          
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                          • KOMK
                            KOM
                            last edited by

                            :o

                            81% miss rate seems awfully high for something that's supposedly working good.

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                            • A
                              aGeekhere
                              last edited by

                              Should look at the hit/miss ratio of file sizes. If you miss 99% of 1kB files it does not matter however it can through your ratio out.

                              Never Fear, A Geek is Here!

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • S
                                saluto
                                last edited by

                                Has any colleague been able to implement this dynamic cache, Squid-3.5 in PFSense?
                                https://github.com/hscbrasil/hsc-dynamic-cache
                                http://comastnet.blogspot.com.br/2016/06/squid-youtube-cache-2016-terbaru-suport.html

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                                • S
                                  SaschaITM
                                  last edited by

                                  KOM: "19% hit rate seems awfully high for something that's supposedly not working at all." (;

                                  Even 19 % hit rate is a benefit if you have to work with a slow/congested line. I think hit rate can be optimized by setting up a machine that will download updates before the standard time frame windows is using to check for/download updates, so that updates are already cached when other machines check for them (I'm going to implement this on one of the systems I'm managing as soon as I find the time). Also, like aGeekHere said, you'd have to look at the byte ratio to be able to see how effective this form of caching actually is. Not sure how this could be done, maybe with a tool like Calamaris and a pre-filtered Squid log file?

                                  Bottom line: caching Windows updates does indeed work, and is actually useful for (at least) some people.

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                                  • KOMK
                                    KOM
                                    last edited by

                                    Bottom line: caching Windows updates does indeed work

                                    I still have yet to see any evidence to back this claim.  A 19% hit rate for WU is crap.  And no, there aren't a zillion little 1K files skewing the ratio.

                                    Here is a proper test:

                                    take two Windows 7 clients that you installed fresh and put them both behind the proxy, leaving only 1 powered on.
                                    Install all updates until there are none left
                                    Power on the second unit and then do all the same updates
                                    Once complete, on pfSense run:

                                    squidclient -h LAN_IP -p 3128 mgr:info
                                    

                                    and post the output.  That will give a lot more detail about the recent session.

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                                    • A
                                      aGeekhere
                                      last edited by

                                      updated, thanks to Valeriy

                                      if there are any mistakes in the refresh pattern let me know

                                      Never Fear, A Geek is Here!

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                                      • V
                                        Valeriy
                                        last edited by

                                        KOM was right, in fact it was not working properly. Also, the results of bare counting of MISSes/HITs from not fully populated cache was not good measurement. Right now, any windowsupdate downloaded file (even partial) is fetched from cache, verified manually and monitored in access.log.

                                        Few days ago I have made some improvements to utilize store_rewrite module.
                                        They were tested, as suggested above by KOM, successfully.

                                        Indeed, some of WU were not cached properly since they were received from different CDN hosts.

                                        Config files are below (squid.conf is only part that is related to this issue)

                                        Apple and Symantec updates are cached well, too.

                                        Steam/Xbox (cs.steampowered.com / llnwd.net respective CDN) are not confirmed yet.

                                        The rest of refresh patterns and URL rewrites are still in experimental mode. Needs a lot of testing and research in order to make it done properly.

                                        Attached is screenshot from Lightsquid, you can clearly see changes after 3rd of March.

                                        P.S. Questions:

                                        • not quite sure if I need to list all possible domains under acl dstdomain directive, or just first level domain will be good enough?

                                        Comments:

                                        • I have total 1.3TB of swap available and 32GB on server running Pfsense+Squid+SquidGuard+Snort+PfBlocker. Configuration is optimized for ~2000 hosts on LAN.

                                        Current byte/hit rate is 20-45%

                                        /usr/local/etc/squid/squid.conf

                                        
                                        .......
                                        # No range offset limit for windowsupdate sites
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain windowsupdate.microsoft.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain update.microsoft.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain download.windowsupdate.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain windowsupdate.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain au.download.windowsupdate.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain bg.v4.pr.dl.ws.microsoft.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain wsus.ds.download.windowsupdate.com
                                        acl Windows_Update dstdomain au.b1.download.windowsupdate.com
                                        range_offset_limit -1  Windows_Update
                                        
                                        # Storeid_rewrite configuration
                                        
                                        acl updatesites dstdom_regex "/usr/local/etc/squid/updatesites.txt"
                                        
                                        store_id_access allow updatesites
                                        store_id_access deny all
                                        store_id_program /usr/local/libexec/squid/storeid_file_rewrite /usr/local/etc/squid/storeid_rewrite.conf
                                        store_id_children 200 startup=60 idle=1 concurrency=0
                                        
                                        # Refresh patterns
                                        # 525600 min is one year
                                        
                                        # Gaming CDN
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.llnwd.net 525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims ignore-reload override-expire override-lastmod ignore-no-store ignore-private ignore-auth
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.cs.steampowered.com 525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims ignore-reload override-expire override-lastmod ignore-no-store ignore-private ignore-auth
                                        
                                        #windows update
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.update.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|[ap]sf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip) 525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims ignore-reload override-expire override-lastmod ignore-no-store ignore-private ignore-auth
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.windowsupdate.com/.*\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|[ap]sf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip) 525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims ignore-reload override-expire override-lastmod ignore-no-store ignore-private ignore-auth
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.download.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|[ap]sf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip) 525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims ignore-reload override-expire override-lastmod ignore-no-store ignore-private ignore-auth
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.ws.microsoft.com/.*\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|[ap]sf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip) 525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims ignore-reload override-expire override-lastmod ignore-no-store ignore-private ignore-auth
                                        
                                        # Symantec Updates
                                        # Only reload-into-ims works properly, other flags break update process 
                                        
                                        refresh_pattern -i \.symantecliveupdate.com/.*\.(zip|exe|z7)          525600 100% 525600 reload-into-ims
                                        
                                        

                                        /usr/local/etc/squid/updatesites.txt

                                        
                                        \.adobe.com
                                        \.java.com
                                        \.sun.com
                                        \.oracle.com
                                        \.apple.com
                                        \.microsoft.com
                                        \.windowsupdate.com
                                        \.ubuntu.com
                                        \.steampowered.com
                                        \.llnwd.net
                                        \.symantecliveupdate.com
                                        
                                        

                                        /usr/local/etc/squid/storeid_rewrite.conf

                                        
                                        ^http:\/\/.+?\.microsoft\.com\/.+?_([0-9a-z]{40})\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|asf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip|psf|appx)     http://wupdate.squid.local/$1
                                        ^http:\/\/.+?\.windowsupdate\.com\/.+?_([0-9a-z]{40})\.(cab|exe|ms[i|u|f]|asf|wm[v|a]|dat|zip|psf|appx) http://wupdate.squid.local/$1
                                        ^http:\/\/.+?\.cs\.steampowered\.com\/(.*)      http://steamupdates.squid.internal/$1
                                        ^http:\/\/.+?\.apple\.com\/(.*) http://appupdates.apple.squid.internal/$1
                                        ^http:\/\/.+?\.llnwd\.net\/(.*)                 http://llnwd.net.squid.internal/$1
                                        
                                        

                                        Regards,

                                        Valeriy

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                                        • V
                                          Valeriy
                                          last edited by

                                          Just a note: manually modifying squid.conf is not good idea, since it can and will be rewritten by PfSense later. With next post I ll try to summarize all the changes and how to incorporate them using GUI of pfSense.

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                                          • S
                                            SaschaITM
                                            last edited by

                                            This is interesting, I wish I had the time to test this thoroughly. Will do that as soon as I find the time.

                                            FWIW, I had massive problems with the "range_offset_limit -1" directive and Windows 10 updates, with "psf" added to the "refresh_pattern". Update download was extremely slow and used up all available bandwidth after a while. It looked like Win10 was aborting and restarting the update download every few seconds, while Squid was still downloading from previous requests. Commented out the "range_offset_limit -1", and updates were downloading "normally" again. The "-1" value isn't documented in the current Squid docs, but it's documented for Squid 2.7. I wonder if "range_offset_limit -1" is still valid/needed with recent Squid versions.

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