RE: What if Squid goes down?

On Wed, 10 Dec 1997, Umar Goldeli wrote:

> Why not just use a proxy.pac with several options etc... if the proxy
> becomes unavailable - go DIRECT for a while until problems are fixed... or
> of course, point to a different proxy.. totally transparent too (apart
> from the fact that users have to config the proxy.pac file).

From what others have reported here, I see little real benefit to the use
of "automatic proxy configuration" (ie., "proxy.pac"); the main argument
in its favour is that you (the admin) have control over what proxies the
user may use, and this may change between sessions - less configuration
problems for the end-user.

However, if browsers keep suffering problems with this method, and the
method remains something limited to MSIE/Netscape-derived products, then
the benefits seem to slowly disappear (for me, anyway).

I force all our 14,000+ users to just manually configure their browsers
with the proxy settings; the benefits this way are:

- all browsers are incredibly similar in this regard (with some small
  exceptions);

- the user has to enter the initial "proxy.pac" details anyway so it's
  not much of a stretch to enter the other details; and,

- it basically works! :-)

Once you settle on a framework "squid.conf" setup and a stable server
(hardware, operating system, &c.), the machine just runs and runs and
runs... no worries (at least, ours does - the normal 1.1.18, not NOVM).

Transparent proxying is the next interesting project (not before next year
though); after all, reducing the client configuration to zero and
placing the intelligence into the network infrastructure is "the way it's
meant to be" (IMHO)...

Cheers..

dave
Received on Tue Dec 09 1997 - 17:50:27 MST