RE: What if Squid goes down?

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From: Bill Wichers[SMTP:billw@unix0.waveform.net]
Sent: Wednesday, 10 December 1997 10:18
To: Umar Goldeli
Cc: Barrie Hall; squid-users
Subject: RE: What if Squid goes down?

This doesn't always work in terms of keeping users using the proxy. I have
found that many of my users call us if nothing happens after 10 seconds or
so of "connecting to host...". Many other users will just automatically
de-proxy after any lag problem, even if it isn't a result of the systems
on our end. It takes about a minute for the proxy.pac script to fall back
to a secondary cache, and this is longer than the users psycological
"must not work" timeout interval. Very few users will ever return their
machines to a proxing config after they disable it, and it usually takes
a lot of prodding from us to get them to do it.

I have found the same thing, we might loose the DNS, the ISDN link may go down, etc, it doesn't matter, any loss of service inevetibly brings screams of "the proxy's down again".
Well after 5-6 months of 100% squid availability, Ive taken the Draconian step of blocking direct access to port 80 outside our firewall. Now everyone HAS to use the proxy. If we do start having problems, Ill probably be roasted on a spit, still it only takes 2 mins to restore access to port 80...

"Pre-pubescent Calamari" - Not the full Squid..

Barrie Hall
Senior Networks/Software Engineer
Aurora Communications Limited
Sydney, Australia
barrieh@auroracomms.com.au
Received on Tue Dec 09 1997 - 21:10:14 MST