How to troubleshoot Squid Package on Netgate router

Authored by: Support.com Tech Pro Team

1. Introduction

How to troubleshoot Squid Package on Netgate router

2. Resolution

Disk Usage Issues

The swap.state from the Squid file can grow large and consume all available drive space. See Tuning the Squid Package for more details.

Sites not loading with splice / Error 409 in access log

As a security measure, squid will not allow a user to connect to a site that has a hostname that does not match its IP address. This prevents clients from hardcoding or altering DNS responses to evade access controls. The side effect of this, however, is that sites which employ round-robin DNS or other DNS optimizations can cause squid to block or drop connections to those sites unintentionally. The squid access log will have a 409 (Conflict) error code when a connection is dropped for this reason.

This happens with sites such as Google or Facebook when the client and squid use different DNS sources, thus getting different DNS results for the same query because the results are randomized. Even though the address for the server is valid, the disparity causes squid to drop the connection.

The solution is to have the clients use the firewall as their DNS server so that both squid and clients use the same DNS source and the results will match.

Clear Cache

Resetting the cache in squid can often clear up issues without performing a more complicated procedure. Before performing a full reset, try clearing and resetting the cache:

mv /var/squid/cache /var/squid/cache.oldsquid -zrm -rf /var/squid/cache.old

The old cache should be moved, then reset, and then the old cache should be removed, as above, because removing the cache directory can be time-consuming, and if it is moved first, then its removal will not prevent squid from being running while it is happening.

Complete Reset

When troubleshooting squid/squidGuard there are some procedures that may be followed to ensure things are completely reset.

1. Remove the packages from System > Packages on the Installed Packages tab in the proper order: Lightsquid, SquidGuard, then Squid
2. Remove the contents of the squid directory and cache:
3. rm -rf /var/squid
4. Remove the Squid and related package including files:
5. rm /usr/local/pkg/*squid*rm -rf /usr/local/etc/squid/
6. Ensure any leftover PBI symlinks are removed:
7. find / -type l -lname '/usr/pbi/*' -delete
8. [Optional] Remove the settings from inside config.xml using one of the following methods:
9. From Diagnostics > Command Prompt in the PHP Execute box:
10. $squid_sections = array("squid", "squidnac", "squidcache", "squidauth", "squidextauth", "squidtraffic", "squidupstream", "squidusers");foreach ($squid_sections as $sec) { if (is_array($config['installedpackages'][$sec])) unset($config['installedpackages'][$sec]);}write_config("Removed Squid");
11. Or to remove squid, squidguard, lightsquid, and anything else with ‘squid’ in its package name from Diagnostics > Command Prompt in the PHP Execute box:
12. foreach (array_keys($config['installedpackages']) as $sec) { if (strpos($sec, "squid") !== false) unset($config['installedpackages'][$sec]);}write_config("Removed all squid-related settings");
13. Or backup config.xml, edit the settings out, then restore.
14. Navigate to System > Packages and on the Available Packages tab, reinstall the following packages in order:
15. Squid
16. squidGuard
17. Lightsquid