In this article, we will have explained the necessary steps to install and configure Squid Proxy on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. Before continuing with this tutorial, make sure you are logged in as a user with sudo privileges. All the commands in this tutorial should be run as a non-root user.
Squid is a free and open-source high performance caching and forwarding HTTP web proxy. It also performs transparent caching that reduces bandwidth and improves response time by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages. Squid proxy server supports caching of content requested through different protocols such as HTTP, SSL requests, DNS lookups, and FTP.
Install Squid Proxy on Ubuntu 20.04
Step 1. First, before you start installing any package on your Ubuntu server, we always recommend making sure that all system packages are updated.
sudo apt update sudo apt upgrade
Step 2. Install Squid Proxy on Ubuntu system.
Installing Squid proxy in Ubuntu 20.04 is easy because it is already available in Ubuntu 20 repositories. Run the following command to install the Squid server:
sudo apt install squid
When installed, Squid is started and enabled to run on system boot:
sudo systemctl status squid
Step 3. Configure Squid server.
The default Squid proxy configuration file is found in /etc/squid/squid.conf. The file already has a number of sets that work at the minimum but we can modify them to suit our preference:
nano /etc/squid/squid.conf
acl localnet src 0.0.0.1-0.255.255.255 # RFC 1122 "this" network (LAN) acl localnet src 10.0.0.0/8 # RFC 1918 local private network (LAN) acl localnet src 100.64.0.0/10 # RFC 6598 shared address space (CGN) acl localnet src 169.254.0.0/16 # RFC 3927 link-local (directly plugged) machines acl localnet src 172.16.0.0/12 # RFC 1918 local private network (LAN) acl localnet src 192.168.0.0/16 # RFC 1918 local private network (LAN) acl localnet src fc00::/7 # RFC 4193 local private network range acl localnet src fe80::/10 # RFC 4291 link-local (directly plugged) machines acl SSL_ports port 443 acl Safe_ports port 80 # http acl Safe_ports port 21 # ftp acl Safe_ports port 443 # https acl Safe_ports port 70 # gopher acl Safe_ports port 210 # wais acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535 # unregistered ports acl Safe_ports port 280 # http-mgmt acl Safe_ports port 488 # gss-http acl Safe_ports port 591 # filemaker acl Safe_ports port 777 # multiling http acl CONNECT method CONNECT http_access deny !Safe_ports http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports http_access allow localhost manager http_access deny manager include /etc/squid/conf.d/* http_access allow localhost http_access deny all http_port 3128 coredump_dir /var/spool/squid refresh_pattern ^ftp: 1440 20% 10080 refresh_pattern ^gopher: 1440 0% 1440 refresh_pattern -i (/cgi-bin/|\?) 0 0% 0 refresh_pattern \/(Packages|Sources)(|\.bz2|\.gz|\.xz)$ 0 0% 0 refresh-ims refresh_pattern \/Release(|\.gpg)$ 0 0% 0 refresh-ims refresh_pattern \/InRelease$ 0 0% 0 refresh-ims refresh_pattern \/(Translation-.*)(|\.bz2|\.gz|\.xz)$ 0 0% 0 refresh-ims refresh_pattern . 0 20% 4320
Whenever you make changes to the configuration file you need to restart the Squid service for the changes to take effect:
sudo systemctl restart squid
Step 4. Configure Firewall Service
For a running firewall service on Ubuntu, open the port on the firewall:
sudo ufw allow 3128/tcp
Step 5. Configure Squid Proxy Client.
All this configuration has been done to set up your Squid proxy server. Now, switch to your client machine and open your web browser. If you’re using Firefox, you can find the proxy settings under:
- Menu > Options > Network Settings > Settings
- Tick the radio button for Manual proxy configuration.
That’s all you need to do to install Squid Proxy Server on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa. I hope you find this quick tip helpful. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to leave a comment below.
