How to Install Squid (Caching / Proxy) on CentOS 7

Squid is a caching and forwarding web proxy. It is most often used in conjunction with a traditional LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP), and can be used to filter traffic on HTTP, FTP, and HTTPS, and increase the speed (thus lower the response time) for a web server via caching.

• These instructions are intended specifically for installing Squid on a single CentOS 7 node.
• I’ll be working from a Liquid Web Core Managed CentOS 7 server, and I’ll be logged in as root.

First, clean-up yum:

yum clean all

As a matter of best practice we’ll update our packages:

yum -y update

Installing Squid and related packages is now as simple as running just one command:

yum -y install squid

Squid should start immediately after the installation. Use the following command to view information on the command:

squid -h

Use the following command to check the version number of Squid and the configuration options it was started with:

squid -v

Your results should appear similar to:

Squid Cache: Version 3.3.8
configure options: ‘–build=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu’ ‘–host=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu’ ‘–program-prefix=’ ‘–prefix=/usr’ ‘–exec-prefix=/usr’ ‘–bindir=/usr/bin’ ‘–sbindir=/usr/sbin’ ‘–sysconfdir=/etc’ ‘–datadir=/usr/share’ ‘–includedir=/usr/include’ ‘–libdir=/usr/lib64’ ‘–libexecdir=/usr/libexec’ ‘–sharedstatedir=/var/lib’ ‘–mandir=/usr/share/man’ ‘–infodir=/usr/share/info’ ‘–disable-strict-error-checking’ ‘–exec_prefix=/usr’ ‘–libexecdir=/usr/lib64/squid’ ‘–localstatedir=/var’ ‘–datadir=/usr/share/squid’ ‘–sysconfdir=/etc/squid’ ‘–with-logdir=$(localstatedir)/log/squid’ ‘–with-pidfile=$(localstatedir)/run/squid.pid’ ‘–disable-dependency-tracking’ ‘–enable-eui’ ‘–enable-follow-x-forwarded-for’ ‘–enable-auth’ ‘–enable-auth-basic=DB,LDAP,MSNT,MSNT-multi-domain,NCSA,NIS,PAM,POP3,RADIUS,SASL,SMB,getpwnam’ ‘–enable-auth-ntlm=smb_lm,fake’ ‘–enable-auth-digest=file,LDAP,eDirectory’ ‘–enable-auth-negotiate=kerberos’ ‘–enable-external-acl-helpers=file_userip,LDAP_group,time_quota,session,unix_group,wbinfo_group’ ‘–enable-cache-digests’ ‘–enable-cachemgr-hostname=localhost’ ‘–enable-delay-pools’ ‘–enable-epoll’ ‘–enable-icap-client’ ‘–enable-ident-lookups’ ‘–enable-linux-netfilter’ ‘–enable-removal-policies=heap,lru’ ‘–enable-snmp’ ‘–enable-ssl’ ‘–enable-ssl-crtd’ ‘–enable-storeio=aufs,diskd,ufs’ ‘–enable-wccpv2’ ‘–enable-esi’ ‘–enable-ecap’ ‘–with-aio’ ‘–with-default-user=squid’ ‘–with-filedescriptors=16384’ ‘–with-dl’ ‘–with-openssl’ ‘–with-pthreads’ ‘build_alias=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu’ ‘host_alias=x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu’ ‘CFLAGS=-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong –param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -fpie’ ‘LDFLAGS=-Wl,-z,relro -pie -Wl,-z,relro -Wl,-z,now’ ‘CXXFLAGS=-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong –param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic -fpie’ ‘PKG_CONFIG_PATH=%{_PKG_CONFIG_PATH}:/usr/lib64/pkgconfig:/usr/share/pkgconfig’

And then start Squid:

systemctl start squid

Be sure that Squid starts at boot:

systemctl enable squid

To check the status of Squid:

systemctl status squid

To stop Squid:

systemctl stop squid