Improve Custom refresh pattern

[Valeriy]

Two invalid expressions.
Somebody can fix them?

/usr/local/etc/squid/squid.conf line 52: refresh_pattern -i .(rar|jar|gz|tgz|tar|bz2|iso|m1v|m2(v|p)|mo(d|v)|(x-|)flv) 129600 100% 129600 ignore-no-cache ignore-no-store ignore-private override-expire override-lastmod reload-into-ims ignore-reload
refreshAddToList: Invalid regular expression '.(rar|jar|gz|tgz|tar|bz2|iso|m1v|m2(v|p)|mo(d|v)|(x-|)flv)': empty (sub)expression

_  kid1| /usr/local/etc/squid/squid.conf line 136: refresh_pattern -i ^http://(khm?)([^/]?).google.(de|com)    129600 100% 129600 ignore-no-cache ignore-no-store ignore-private override-expire override-lastmod reload-into-ims ignore-reload
refreshAddToList: Invalid regular expression '^http://(khm?)([^/]?).google.(de|com)': repetition-operator operand invalid_

[KOM]

For the first one, I think the problem is here:

(x-|)

There is nothing on the other side of the OR.  I don't know what file type would be handled by the extension x-.  To fix it, just remove the entire (x-|).

For the second one, I don't know for sure, but it seems like a lot of regex just to handle .google..

[doktornotor]

I would strongly urge everyone to ditch the pointless idea of trying to cache dynamic sites. It doesn't work in like 99% of cases, plus breaks Squid. And please ditch ALL those antivirus patterns. None of them works. The AVs are streaming updates with new sigs to clients every couple of minutes these days. There's nothing to cache.

[saluto]

So why use squid? Because most sites are changing to https.

Various web content are in videos, overloading the network.

[KOM]

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.

[Valeriy]

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

[KOM]

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.

[Valeriy]

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

[KOM]

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

[danbak365]

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

[aGeekhere]

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.

[saluto]

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

[Valeriy]

@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

[saluto]

How did your dynamic cache get now?

[Valeriy]

@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)

[KOM]

:o

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

[aGeekhere]

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.

[saluto]

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

[SaschaITM]

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.

[KOM]

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.