Chapter 9. Interception Caching

Interception caching is a popular technique for getting traffic to Squid without configuring any clients. Instead, you configure a router or switch to divert HTTP connections to the machine on which Squid is running. Squid's operating system is configured to accept the foreign packets and deliver them to the Squid process. To make HTTP interception work, you need to configure three separate components: a network device, Squid's operating system, and Squid itself.

This chapter begins with an overview of HTTP interception. I'll explain how it all works and define some terms so that the remaining sections make sense. I also explain the tradeoffs involved with HTTP interception.

Following that, I'll discuss your options for devices and configurations that can intercept client traffic. In particular, I cover Cisco policy routing, Cisco's WCCP, layer four switches, and running Squid on a host that also functions as a router or bridge.

Next, I'll show how to configure the operating system to handle the intercepted connections. This functionality is a feature of the IP packet filtering software, which varies from system to system. It is called iptables (Netfilter) on Linux; ipfw on FreeBSD; pf on OpenBSD; and IPFilter on NetBSD, Solaris, and other BSD variants.

Squid is the final component you need to configure. Fortunately, this is relatively straightforward because it doesn't depend on your operating system or network device.

I finish the chapter with a little checklist that may help you debug HTTP interception problems.