
Squid Proxy Server
To be able to cache HTTP and FTP requests made from inside your LAN
to the Internet, you will need to set up a proxy server on your
firewall. This allows for a page, which is requested by two
different users, to be retrieved only once from the Internet, thus
dramatically fastening access to this page while saving precious
bandwidth.
MandrakeSecurity has chosen the Squid proxy server. The latter acts
as an agent, accepting requests from clients (such as browsers) and
passing them on to the appropriate Internet server. It then stores a
copy of the returned data in an on-disk cache.
Choose between four options before going on to the next step:
- Deactivate the Proxy Server: if you choose not to use the proxy,
requests from users will be directly forwarded to the outside;
- Activate Transparent Proxy: activates the proxy and
configures it to act as a transparent proxy, i.e. users will not
need to configure their clients in order to use the proxy: all
requests are automatically intercepted and managed by the proxy;
- Activate Manual Proxy: same as previous, but client web
browsers will need to be reconfigured to explicitly use the proxy
server installed on your MandrakeSecurity server;
- Activate Manual Proxy with User Level Authentication: same as
previous, but users will be asked for a user name and password to
be able to use the proxy. WARNING: create accounts on the firewall
Linux box for the users who are authorized to connect to the
Internet.