5.4 Testing Squid in a Terminal Window

Once you've initialized the cache directories, you should run Squid in a terminal window with logging to stderr. This way, you can easily spot any errors or problems and make sure that Squid successfully starts. Use the -N option to keep Squid in the foreground and the -d1 option to display level 1 debugging on stderr:

% squid -N -d1

You should see output like this:

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Starting Squid Cache 

version 2.5.STABLE4 for i386-unknown-freebsd4.8...

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Process ID 294

2003/09/29 12:57:52| With 1064 file descriptors available

2003/09/29 12:57:52| DNS Socket created on FD 4

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Adding nameserver 206.107.176.2 from /etc/resolv.conf

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Adding nameserver 205.162.184.2 from /etc/resolv.conf

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Unlinkd pipe opened on FD 9

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Swap maxSize 102400 KB, estimated 7876 objects

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Target number of buckets: 393

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Using 8192 Store buckets

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Max Mem  size: 8192 KB

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Max Swap size: 102400 KB

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Rebuilding storage in /usr/local/squid/var/cache (DIRTY)

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Using Least Load store dir selection

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Set Current Directory to /usr/local/squid/var/cache

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Loaded Icons.

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Accepting HTTP connections at 0.0.0.0, port 3128, FD 11.

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Accepting ICP messages at 0.0.0.0, port 3130, FD 12.

2003/09/29 12:57:52| WCCP Disabled.

2003/09/29 12:57:52| Ready to serve requests.

If you see an error message, you need to fix it before proceeding. Be sure to check the first few lines of output for warning messages. The most common errors are file/directory permissions and configuration file syntax errors. If you see an error message that doesn't make sense, have a look at Chapter 16 for advice and information on troubleshooting Squid. If that doesn't help, check the Squid FAQ, or search the mailing list archives for an explanation.

Once you see the Ready to serve requests message, test Squid with a few HTTP requests. You can do this by configuring your browser to use Squid as a proxy and then open a web page. If Squid is working correctly, the page should load as quickly as it would without using Squid. Alternatively, you can use the squidclient program that comes with Squid:

% squidclient http://www.squid-cache.org/

If this works, Squid's home page HTML file will scroll across your terminal window. Once you're confident that Squid works okay, you can interrupt the Squid process (i.e., with Ctrl-C) and run Squid as a daemon.