Proxy Software

[sde]

I'm looking to setup a proxy for web surfing on either linux or freebsd.

any recommendations of something that has a great eas-of-use to functionality rating?

[Admin]

i hightly recommend squid. i have it running in the main office with ~100 users. took a great load off our primary T1 and runs very well.

i have some very basic filtering setup as well. easy to setup and haven't had any problems (yet).

[Belisarius]

Ditto on Squid. It's pretty much the defacto proxy software for Linux as far as I know.

[sde]

wow, squid was a snap to install.

now i want to make the connection from the client to the web server secure. i installed it on debian. anyone know how i can achieve this?

you can see my goal is for secure (between client and squid) web surfing.

[sde]

matt, how did it take a big load off the primary t1?

[Admin]

dude, why can't i upload an image!?

[Admin]

Started monitoring traffic in october, T1 was completely saturated for 40% of the workday. Installed Squid on an extra machine and dropped traffic by ~25% then got another T1 for our connection to the colo.

Squid is a caching proxy server, so it will reduce outside network requests. Especially in my office with 80 sales & customer service reps looking at the same websites all day long.

[idx]

Originally Posted by sde

you can see my goal is for secure (between client and squid) web surfing.

http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ-1.html#ss1.12

1.12 Seems to indicate that it can tunnel the connection from squid-to-client, but I haven't personally tried.

Seems kind of moot at this point to recommend squid, but it's what I've used. I don't have control of the network at work, but have used it for several PC's at home. Even with such a small number of clients (<5) it was helpful. (transparent proxy, cache accel, monitoring/reporting, filtering to block sites/remove banner ads, etc..)

-r