14.2 The Cache Manager

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The Cache Manager is an interface to Squid for receiving information about various components . It is accessed via normal HTTP requests with a special protocol name : cache_object . A full cache manager URL looks like cache_object://cache.host.name/ info . Squid provides two easy ways to access the cache manager information: the command-line squidclient program [1] or the cachemgr.cgi CGI program.

[1] In older versions of Squid, it was called just client .

The squidclient utility is a simple HTTP client, with a few special features for use with Squid. For example, you can use a shortcut to request the cache manager pages. Rather than typing a long URL like this:

 % squidclient cache_object://cache.host.name/info 

you can use this shorter version:

 % squidclient mgr:info 

squidclient is a convenient way to quickly see some of the cache manager pages. It's also useful when you need to save the cache manager output to disk for later analysis. However, some pages, such as the memory utilization table, are difficult to read in a terminal window. They are really designed to be formatted as an HTML page and viewed with your web browser. In that case, you may want to use cachemgr.cgi .

To use cachemgr.cgi , you must have an HTTP server that can execute the program. You can use an existing server or install one alongside Squid if you prefer. Keep in mind that the cache manager has only weak security (cleartext passwords). If the HTTP server is on a different host, you need to add its IP address to a cache manager access list (see Section 14.2.2). You may also want to add access controls to the HTTP server so that others can't access cachemgr.cgi .

If you use Apache, I recommend making a special cgi-bin directory so you can protect cachemgr.cgi with access controls. For example, create a new directory, and copy the binary to it:

 # mkdir /usr/local/apache/squid-cgi # cp /usr/local/squid/libexec/cachemgr.cgi /usr/local/apache/squid-cgi # chmod 755 /usr/local/apache/squid-cgi/cachemgr.cgi 

Now, add a ScriptAlias line to Apache's httpd.conf :

 ScriptAlias /squid-cgi/ "/usr/local/apache/squid-cgi/" 

Finally, create an .htaccess file in the squid-cgi directory that contains access controls. To allow requests from only one IP address, use something like this:

 Allow from 192.168.4.2 Deny from all 

Once cachemgr.cgi is installed, simply enter the appropriate URL into your web browser. For example:

 http://www.server.name/squid-cgi/cachemgr.cgi 

If the CGI program is working, you should see a page with four fields. See Figure 14-1 for an example. The Cache Host field contains the name of the host on which Squid is running ”localhost by default. You can set it with the ”enable-cachemgr-hostname option when running ./configure . Similarly, Cache Port contains the TCP port number to which Squid listens for requests. It's 3128 by default and can be changed with the ”enable-cachemgr-port option. The Manager name and Password fields are for access to protected pages, which I'll talk about shortly.

Figure 14-1. The cachemgr.cgi login screen
figs/sq_1401.gif

After clicking on the Continue ... button, you should see a list of all cache manager pages currently available. The following section describes the various pages, some of which are available only when you enable certain features at compile time.

14.2.1 Cache Manager Pages

This section describes the cache manager pages, in the same order in which they appear in the menu. Each section title has both the page name (for use with squidclient ), followed by its description. Descriptions that contain an asterisk indicate pages that are disabled by default, unless you configure a password for them. Table 14-1 shows the table of contents and the section number for each page.

Table 14-1. Cache manager pages

Short name

Description

leaks

Memory Leak Tracking

mem

Memory Utilization

cbdata

Callback Data Registry Contents

events

Event Queue

squidaio_counts

Async IO Function Counters

diskd

DISKD Stats

config

Current Squid Configuration*

comm_incoming

comm_incoming( ) Stats

ipcache

IP Cache Stats and Contents

fqdncache

FQDN Cache Stats and Contents

idns

Internal DNS Statistics

dns

Dnsserver Statistics

redirector

URL Redirector Stats

basicauthenticator

Basic User Authenticator Stats

digestauthenticator

Digest User Authenticator Stats

ntlmauthenticator

NTLM User Authenticator Stats

external_acl

External ACL Stats

http_headers

HTTP Header Statistics

via_headers

Via Request Headers

forw_headers

X-Forwarded-For Request Headers

menu

This Cache Manager Menu

shutdown

Shut Down the Squid Process*

offline_toggle

Toggle offline_mode Setting*

info

General Runtime Information

filedescriptors

Process File Descriptor Allocation

objects

All Cache Objects

vm_objects

In-Memory and In-Transit Objects

openfd_objects

Objects with Swapout Files Open

io

Server-Side Network read( ) Size Histograms

counters

Traffic and Resource Counters

peer_select

Peer Selection Algorithms

digest_stats

Cache Digest and ICP Blob

5min

5 Minute Average of Counters

60min

60 Minute Average of Counters

utilization

Cache Utilization

histograms

Full Histogram Counts

active_requests

Client-Side Active Requests

store_digest

Store Digest

storedir

Store Directory Stats

store_check_cachable_stats

storeCheckCachable( ) Stats

store_io

Store IO Interface Stats

pconn

Persistent Connection Utilization Histograms

refresh

Refresh Algorithm Statistics

delay

Delay Pool Levels

forward

Request Forwarding Statistics

client_list

Cache Client List

netdb

Network Measurement Database

asndb

AS Number Database

carp

CARP Information

server_list

Peer Cache Statistics

non_peers

List of Unknown Sites Sending ICP Messages

14.2.1.1 leaks: Memory Leak Tracking

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-leakfinder option and is intended for developers trying to track down memory leaks. The page shows each memory pointer being tracked and where and when it was most recently referenced. See the Squid Programmer's Guide (http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/Prog-Guide/) for more information about Squid's leak-finder feature.

14.2.1.2 mem: Memory Utilization

The memory utilization page shows a large table of numbers . Each row corresponds to a different pool of memory. The pools have names like acl_list and MemObject . Much of this information is of interest to developers only. However, a few columns are worth mentioning here.

It is important to keep in mind that this table doesn't represent all the memory allocated by Squid. Some memory allocations aren't tracked and don't appear in the table. Thus, the Total row may be much less than Squid's actual memory usage.


The impact column shows each pool's contribution to the total amount of memory allocated. Usually, the StoreEntry , MD5 digest , and LRU policy node pools take up most of the memory.

If you are a developer, you can use this page to look for memory leaks. The column labeled high (hrs) shows the amount of time elapsed since the pool reached its maximum size. A small value in this column may indicate that memory for that pool isn't being freed correctly.

You can also use this page to find out if certain features, such as netdb , the ipcache , and client_db consume too much memory. For example, the ClientInfo pool is associated with the client_db feature. The memory utilization page shows you how much memory you can save if you disable client_db in squid.conf .

14.2.1.3 cbdata: Callback Data Registry Contents

The Callback Data Registry is an internal Squid programming feature for managing memory pointers. Currently, this cache manager page doesn't provide much useful information, apart from the number of active cbdata pointers being tracked. In earlier Squid versions, the cbdata feature was implemented differently and this page provided some information to developers debugging their code.

14.2.1.4 events: Event Queue

Squid maintains an event queue for a number of tasks that must occur separately from user requests. Perhaps the most important of these is the periodic task that maintains the disk cache size. Every second or so, this task runs and looks for cache files to remove. On this page, you can see all tasks currently scheduled for execution. Most likely, you'll not find this very interesting unless you are hacking the source code.

14.2.1.5 squidaio_counts: Async IO Function Counters

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-storeio=aufs option. It shows counters for the number of open, close, read, write, stat, and unlink requests received. For example:

 ASYNC IO Counters: Operation       # Requests open             15318822 close            15318813 cancel           15318813 write                   0 read             19237139 stat                    0 unlink            2484325 check_callback  311678364 queue                   0 

The cancel counter is normally equal to the close counter. This is because the close function always calls the cancel function to ensure that any pending I/O operations are ignored.

The write counter is zero because this version of Squid performs writes synchronously, even for aufs .

The check_callback counter shows how many times the main Squid process has checked the done queue for completed operations.

The queue value indicates the current length of the request queue. Normally, the queue length should be less than the number of threads x 5. If you repeatedly observe a queue length larger than this, you may be pushing Squid too hard. Adding more threads may help, but only to a certain point.

14.2.1.6 diskd: DISKD Stats

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-storeio=diskd option. It provides various statistics relating to the diskd storage scheme.

The sent_count and recv_count lines are counters for the number of I/O requests sent between Squid and the group of diskd processes. The two numbers should be very close to each other and could possibly be equal. The difference indicates how many requests are currently outstanding.

The max_away value indicates the largest number of outstanding requests. Similarly, the max_shmuse counter indicates the maximum number of shared memory blocks in use at once. These two values are reset (to zero) each time you request this page. Thus, if you wait longer between requests for this page, these maximum counters are likely to be larger.

The open_fail_queue_len counter indicates the number of times that the diskd code decided to return failure in response to a request to open a file because the message queue exceeded its configured limit. In other words, this is the number of times a diskd queue reached the Q1 limit. Similarly, block_queue_len shows how many times the Q2 limit has been reached. See the descriptions of Q1 and Q2 in Section 8.5.1.

The diskd page also shows how many requests Squid sent to the diskd processes for each of the six I/O operations: open, create, close, unlink, read, and write. It also shows how many times each operation succeeded or failed. Note, these counters are incremented only for requests sent. The open_fail_queue_len check occurs earlier, and in that case, Squid doesn't send a request to a diskd process.

14.2.1.7 config: Current Squid Configuration*

This option dumps Squid's current configuration in the squid.conf format. Thus, if you ever accidentally remove the configuration file, you can recover it from the running Squid process. By saving the output to a file, you can also compare (e.g., with the diff command) the running configuration to the saved configuration. Note, however, that comments and blank lines aren't preserved.

This option reveals potentially sensitive information, so it's available only with a password. You must add a cache manager password for the config option with the cachemgr_passwd directive. See Section 14.2.2 for specifics. Additionally, these cache manager passwords aren't displayed in this output.

14.2.1.8 comm_incoming: comm_incoming( ) Stats

This page provides low-level network I/O information to developers and Squid wizards. The loop that checks for activity on file descriptors is called comm_poll( ) . Over the years , this function has become increasingly complicated in order to improve Squid's performance. One of those performance improvements relates to how often Squid checks certain network sockets relative to the others.

For example, the incoming HTTP socket is where Squid accepts new client connections. This socket tends to be busier than a normal data socket because each new connection comes through the incoming socket. To provide good performance, Squid makes an extra effort to check the incoming socket more frequently than the others.

At the top of the comm_incoming page, you'll see three incoming interval numbers: one each for ICP, DNS, and HTTP. The interval is the number of normal I/O events that Squid handles before checking the incoming socket again. For example, if incoming_dns_interval is set to 140, Squid checks the incoming DNS socket after 140 I/Os on normal connections. Unless your Squid is very busy, you'll probably see 256 for all incoming intervals.

The page also contains three histograms that show how many events occur for each incoming function call. Normally, the majority of the histogram counts occur in the low values. In other words, functions such as comm_select_http_incoming( ) usually handle between one and four events.

14.2.1.9 ipcache: IP Cache Stats and Contents

The IP cache contains cached results of hostname-to-address lookups. This cache manager page displays quite a lot of information. At the top of this page you'll see a handful of statistics like these:

 IPcache Entries: 10034 IPcache Requests: 1066445 IPcache Hits: 817880 IPcache Negative Hits: 6846 IPcache Misses: 200497 

In this example, you can see that the IP cache contains slightly more than 10,000 entries (hostnames). Since Squid was started, there have been 1,066,445 name-to-address requests, 817,880 of which were cache hits. This is a cache hit ratio of 77%. An IP cache negative hit occurs when Squid receives a subsequent request for a hostname that it recently failed to resolve. Rather than retry the DNS lookup immediately, Squid assumes it will fail again and returns an error message to the user.

Following these brief statistics, you'll see a long list of the IP cache contents. For each hostname in the cache, Squid prints six fields:

  • The hostname itself

  • Flags: N for negatively cached entries and H if the addresses came from the local hosts file, rather than the DNS

  • The number of seconds since the hostname was last requested or used

  • The number of seconds until the cached entry expires

  • The number of IP addresses known for the host, and, in parentheses, the number of BAD addresses

  • A list of IP addresses and whether each is OK or BAD

Here is a short sample (formatted to fit the page):

 Hostname                        Flg lstref    TTL  N  ads.x10.com                              9    110  1( 0)   63.211.210.20-OK  us.rd.yahoo.com                        640   -340  4( 0) 216.136.232.150-OK                                                           216.136.232.147-OK                                                           216.136.232.149-OK                                                           216.136.232.148-OK  www.movielodge.com                    7143  -2161  1( 0)   66.250.223.36-OK  shell.windows.com                    10865  -7447  2( 1)   207.46.226.48-BAD                                                            207.46.248.237-OK  www.surf3.net                       126810 -40415  1( 0)   212.74.112.95-OK 

The list is sorted by the time since last reference. Recently referenced names are at the top of the list, and unused (about to be removed) names are at the bottom.

IP addresses are marked OK by default. An address is marked BAD when Squid receives an error or timeout during a TCP connection attempt. Subsequent IP cache requests don't return BAD addresses. If all the host's addresses become BAD, Squid resets them all back to OK.

14.2.1.10 fqdncache: FQDN Cache Stats and Contents

The FQDN cache is similar to the IP cache, except that it stores address-to-hostname lookups. Another difference is that the FQDN cache doesn't mark hostnames as OK or BAD.

Your FQDN cache may be empty, unless you enable the log_fqdn directive, use domain-based ACLs (such as srcdomain , dstdomain , srcdom_regex , and dstdom_regex ), or use a redirector.

14.2.1.11 idns: Internal DNS Statistics

Squid contains an internal DNS client implementation, which is enabled by default. Disabling internal DNS with the ”disable-internal-dns option also disables this page. Here is some sample output:

 Internal DNS Statistics: The Queue:                        DELAY SINCE   ID   SIZE SENDS FIRST SEND LAST SEND ------ ---- ----- ---------- --------- 001876   44     1      0.010     0.010 001875   44     1      0.010     0.010 Nameservers: IP ADDRESS      # QUERIES # REPLIES --------------- --------- --------- 192.168.19.124       4889      4844 192.168.19.190         91        51 192.168.10.2           73        39 Rcode Matrix: RCODE ATTEMPT1 ATTEMPT2 ATTEMPT3     0     6149        4        2     1        0        0        0     2       38       34       32     3        0        0        0     4        0        0        0     5        0        0        0 

The Internal DNS page contains three tables. First, you'll see the queue of unanswered queries. Unfortunately, you can't see the contents of the query (the hostname or IP address). Instead, Squid prints the ID, size, number of transmissions, and elapsed times for each query. You should see relatively few queries in the queue. If you see a lot relative to your total traffic rate, make sure your DNS servers are functioning properly.

The second table ( Nameservers ) shows how many queries have been sent to, and replies received from, each DNS server. Squid always queries the first server in the list first. Second (and third, etc.) servers are queried only when the previous server times out for a given query. If you see zero replies from the first address, make sure a server is actually running at that address.

Finally, you'll see a table of DNS response codes versus number of attempts. The cell for response code and ATTEMPT1 should have the highest count. Response code indicates success, while others are different types of errors (see RFC 1035 for their descriptions). You may see some smaller numbers for response code in the columns for ATTEMPT2 and ATTEMPT3 . This shows the cases when retransmitting a query, after initially receiving an error, resulted in a successful reply. Note that Squid retries only response code 2 (server failure) errors.

14.2.1.12 dns: Dnsserver Statistics

This cache manager page is available only when you use the ”disable-internal-dns option. In this case, Squid uses a number of external dnsserver processes to perform DNS lookups. The dnsserver program is one of a number of helper processes Squid can use. The other types of helpers are redirectors, authenticators, and external ACLs. All Squid's helpers have cache manager pages that display the same statistics. For example:

 Dnsserver Statistics: number running: 5 of 5 requests sent: 3001 replies received: 3001 queue length: 0 avg service time: 23.10 msec       #      FD     PID  # Requests     Flags      Time  Offset Request       1       6   20110         128     AB        0.293       0 www.nlanr.net       2       7   20111          45     A         0.000       0 (none)       3       8   20112           4     A         0.000       0 (none)       4       9   20113           0     A         0.000       0 (none)       5      10   20114           0     A         0.000       0 (none) 

The number running line shows how many helper processes are running and how many should be running. The dns_children directive specifies how many dnsserver processes to use. The two numbers should match, but they may not if a helper process dies unexpectedly or if some processes could not be started. Recall that when you reconfigure a running Squid instance, all the helpers are killed and restarted. See the discussion in Appendix A.

The requests sent and replies received values display the number of requests sent to (and responses received from) the helpers since Squid started. The difference between these two, if any, should correspond to the number of outstanding requests.

The queue length line shows how many requests are queued, waiting for one of the helpers to become free. The queue length should usually be zero. If not, you should add more helpers to reduce delays for your users.

The avg service time line shows the running average service time for all helpers. Your particular value may depend on numerous factors, such as your network bandwidth and processing power.

The next section displays a table of statistics for the running dnsserver processes. The FD column shows the file descriptor for the socket between Squid and each dnsserver process. Similarly, the PID column shows each helper's process ID number.

The # Requests column shows how many requests have been sent to each helper. These numbers are zeroed each time you reconfigure Squid, so they many not add up to the total number of requests sent, as shown earlier. Note that Squid always chooses the first idle helper in the list, so the first process should receive the largest number of requests. The last few processes may not receive any requests at all.

The Flags column shows a few flags describing the state of the helper process. You should normally see A (for Alive ) in each column. Occasionally, when the helper process is handling a request, you'll see B (for Busy).

The Time column displays the amount of time elapsed (in seconds) for the current, or last, request. Offset shows how many bytes of the response message Squid has read on the socket. This is almost always zero. Finally, the Request column shows the request that was sent to the helper process. In this case, it is either a hostname or an IP address.

14.2.1.13 redirector: URL Redirector Stats

The Redirector Stats page is available only if you are using a redirector (see Chapter 11). The format of this page is identical to Dnsserver Statistics , described earlier.

14.2.1.14 basicauthenticator: Basic User Authenticator Stats

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-auth=basic option and when you define a Basic authenticator with the auth_param basic program directive. The format of this page is identical to Dnsserver Statistics , described earlier.

14.2.1.15 digestauthenticator: Digest User Authenticator Stats

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-auth=digest option and when you define a Digest authenticator with the auth_param digest program directive. The format of this page is identical to Dnsserver Statistics , described earlier.

14.2.1.16 ntlmauthenticator: NTLM User Authenticator Stats

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-auth=ntlm option and when you define a NTLM authenticator with then auth_param ntlm program directive. The format of this page is similar to Dnsserver Statistics , described earlier, with a few additions.

The table of helper processes includes an extra column: # Deferred Requests . NTLM requires "stateful" helpers because the helper processes themselves generate the challenges. Squid receives a challenge from a helper, sends that challenge to a user, and receives a response. Squid must send the user's challenge response back to the same helper for validation. For this protocol to work, Squid must defer some messages to be sent to a helper until the helper is ready to accept them.

These helpers also have two new flags: R (reserved or deferred) and P (placeholder). The R flag is set when the helper has at least one deferred request waiting. The P flag is set when Squid is waiting for the NTLM helper to generate a new challenge token.

14.2.1.17 external_acl: External ACL Stats

This page displays helper statistics for your external ACLs. If you don't have any external_acl_type lines in squid.conf , this page will be empty. Otherwise, Squid displays the statistics for each external ACL. The format is the same as for the Dnsserver Statistics .

14.2.1.18 http_headers: HTTP Header Statistics

This page displays a number of tables containing statistics about HTTP headers. It contains up to four sections: HTCP reply stats (if HTCP is enabled), HTTP request stats, HTTP reply stats, and a final section called HTTP Fields Stats. The HTCP reply statistics refer to HTCP replies received by your cache. The HTTP request section refers to HTTP requests either sent or received by your cache. Similarly, the HTTP reply section refers to replies either sent or received by Squid.

The first three sections have the same format. Each section contains three tables: Field type distribution, Cache-control directives distribution, and Number of fields per header distribution.

The Field type distribution table shows the number of times that each header value occurs and the percentage of cases in which it occurs. For example, in Table 14-2 you can see that the Accept header occurs in 98% of HTTP requests.

Table 14-2. Sample Field type distribution values for HTTP requests

ID

Name

Count

#/header

Accept

1416268

0.98

1

Accept-Charset

322077

0.22

2

Accept-Encoding

709715

0.49

3

Accept-Language

1334736

0.92

...

...

...

...

Unfortunately, these (and the following) statistics are tricky because they don't correspond one-to-one for client requests. For example, Squid may report 1,416,268 Accept headers in requests but only 800,542 client requests. This happens because Squid creates more than one HTTP header data structure for each request. In the case of HTTP replies, it seems that Squid may create up to four separate header structures, depending on the circumstances.

The Cache-Control directives distribution is similar, but applies only to the values of the Cache-Control header. Table 14-3 shows some of the possible field values.

Table 14-3. Sample Cache-Control directives distribution values for HTTP requests

ID

Name

Count

#/cc_field

public

6866

0.02

1

private

69783

0.24

2

no-cache

78252

0.27

3

no-store

9878

0.03

4

no-transform

168

0.00

5

must-revalidate

10983

0.04

6

proxy-revalidate

2480

0.01

7

max-age

165034

0.56

8

s-maxage

4995

0.02

9

max-stale

0.00

10

only-if-cached

0.00

11

Other

9149

0.03

The Number of fields per header distribution table shows how many headers occur in each request or reply. Usually, you should see something like a normal distribution with a peak around 10-13 headers per request or response.

Finally, this page ends with a table labeled Http Fields Stats (replies and requests) . For each header, this table shows three values: #alive , %err , and %repeat .

The #alive column shows how many instances of this header are currently stored in memory. HTTP headers are kept in memory for both active requests/responses and for completed objects stored in the memory cache.

The %err column shows the percentage of times Squid encountered an error while parsing this header. Common errors include incorrect date formats for Date , Expires , Last-Modified , and similar headers. The value -1 indicates no errors.

The %repeat column indicates the number of times that a particular header is repeated in a single request or response. These aren't errors because HTTP allows headers to be repeated.

14.2.1.19 via_headers: Via Request Headers

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-forw-via-db option. The information in this page is intended to help cache administrators understand where client requests come from. When enabled, Squid counts the number of times each unique Via header occurs in client requests.

The Via header contains a list of downstream proxies that have forwarded the request so far. When a proxy forwards a request, it should append its hostname and other identifying information to the Via header. With the information in this database, you can, in theory, reconstruct the hierarchy of proxies forwarding requests through yours.

Squid prints the Via database entries in a random order. The output may look something like this:

 4 1.0 proxy.firekitten.org:3128 (squid/2.5.STABLE1)    1 1.0 xnsproxy.dyndns.org:3128 (squid/2.5.PRE3-20020125) 1751 1.0 nt04.rmtcc.cc.oh.us:3128 (Squid/2.4.STABLE6),          1.0 tasksmart.rmtcc.cc.oh.us:3128 (Squid/2.4.STABLE7)  137 1.0 reg3.bdg.telco.co.id:8080 (Squid/2.2.STABLE5),          1.0 c1.telco.co.id:8080 (Squid/2.4.STABLE6),          1.0 cache2.telco.co.id:8080 (Squid/2.4.STABLE1)   53 1.0 IS_GW_312:3128 (Squid/2.4.STABLE6)   60 1.0 proxy.kiltron.net:3128 (Squid/2.4.STABLE7)  815 1.1 DORM 

In this example, Squid received 1751 requests that previously passed through two other proxies (nt04 and tasksmart). Note that only proxies add a Via header. Requests from user- agents usually don't have the header and, therefore, aren't counted in this database.

As you can see, the Via headers reveal some semiprivate information, such as hostnames, port numbers, and software versions. Please take care to respect the privacy of your users if you enable this feature.

The Via database is stored entirely in memory and is lost if Squid restarts. The database is cleared whenever you rotate the log files (see Section 13.7).

14.2.1.20 forw_headers: X-Forwarded-For Request Headers

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-forw-via-db option. It is similar to the via_headers page, except that it displays the accumulation of X-Forwarded-For headers.

X-Forwarded-For is a nonstandard HTTP header that originated with the Squid project. Its value is a list of client IP addresses. In other words, when Squid receives and forwards a request, it appends the client's IP address to this header. It is similar to Via because the header grows each time a proxy passes the request on towards the origin server.

The forw_headers output is similar to via_headers . Each line begins with an integer, followed by a header value. The integer indicates how many times that particular X-Forwarded-For value was received. For example:

 1 10.37.1.56, 10.1.83.8   3 10.3.33.77, 10.1.83.8 569 116.120.203.54  21 10.65.18.200, 10.1.83.120  31 116.120.204.6   5 10.1.92.7, 10.1.83.120   1 10.3.65.122, 10.3.1.201, 10.1.83.8   2 10.73.73.51, 10.1.83.120   1 10.1.68.141, 10.1.83.8   3 10.1.92.7, 10.1.83.122 

As with via_headers , this database is also stored in memory and is lost if Squid exits. The database is cleared each time you rotate Squid's log files.

14.2.1.21 menu: This Cache Manager Menu

This page simply displays a listing of the other cache manager pages. You can use it if you forget the name of a page or if you want to know if certain optional pages are available. When using cachemgr.cgi , each item in the menu is a clickable link.

14.2.1.22 shutdown: Shut Down the Squid Process*

This is one of the few cache manager functions that doesn't simply display some information. Rather, this "page" allows you to shut down Squid remotely. To allow shutdown via the cache manager, you must assign it a password with the cachemgr_passwd (see Section 14.2.2) directive in squid.conf . Without a password, the shutdown operation is disabled (but you can still use squid -k shutdown ).

Because the cache manager has very weak security ”passwords are sent in cleartext ”I don't recommend enabling this operation.

14.2.1.23 offline_toggle: Toggle offline_mode Setting*

This is another function that allows you to control Squid, rather than simply receive information. It also requires a password (see Section 14.2.2) in order to become active.

Each time you request this page, Squid toggles the offline_mode setting. Squid reports the new setting on your screen and in cache.log .

14.2.1.24 info: General Runtime Information

This page provides a lot of basic information about the way that Squid is operating. It is a good starting point for using the cache manager and for tracking down performance problems.

At the top, you'll see the release version (e.g., Version 2.5.STABLE4) and two timestamps: the starting and current times. For example:

 Squid Object Cache: Version 2.5.STABLE4 Start Time:     Mon, 22 Sep 2003 03:10:37 GMT Current Time:   Mon, 13 Oct 2003 10:25:16 GMT 

Following that, you'll see seven different sections. The first section, Connection information , displays a few statistics about the number and rate of connections, and the number of cache clients :

 Connection information for squid:         Number of clients accessing cache:      386         Number of HTTP requests received:       12997469         Number of ICP messages received:        16302149         Number of ICP messages sent:    16310714         Number of queued ICP replies:   0         Request failure ratio:   0.00         Average HTTP requests per minute since start:   423.7         Average ICP messages per minute since start:    1063.2         Select loop called: 400027445 times, 4.601 ms avg 

Number of clients accessing cache

Here, "client" actually means IP address. Squid assumes that each client has a unique IP address.


Number of HTTP requests received

The total number of HTTP requests since Squid was started.


Number of ICP messages received

The total number of ICP messages received since Squid was started. Note, received messages includes both queries and responses. These values don't include HTCP messages, however.


Number of ICP messages sent

The total number of ICP messages sent since Squid was started. Note, received messages includes both queries and responses. Doesn't include HTCP messages. Most likely, your sent and received counts will be about the same.


Number of queued ICP replies

ICP messages are sent over UDP. The sendto ( ) system call rarely fails, but if it does, Squid queues the ICP message for retransmission. This counter shows how many times an ICP message was queued for retransmission. Most likely, you'll see here.


Request failure ratio

The failure ratio is a moving average ratio between the number of failed and successful requests. In this context, a failed request is caused by either a DNS error, TCP connection error, or network read error. When this ratio exceeds 1.0 ”meaning Squid returns more errors than successful responses ” Squid goes into hit-only mode. In this mode, Squid returns ICP_MISS_NOFETCH instead of ICP_MISS . Thus, your neighbor caches that use ICP won't forward cache misses to you until the problem goes away.


Average HTTP requests per minute since start

This value is simply the number of HTTP requests divided by the amount of time Squid has been running. This average doesn't reflect short- term variations in load. To get a better instantaneous load measurement, use the 5min or 60min page.


Average ICP messages per minute since start

The number of ICP queries received by Squid divided by the amount of time that it has been running.


Select loop called

This number is probably meaningful only to Squid developers. It represents the number of times the select( ) (or poll( ) ) function has been called and the average time between calls. During normal operation, the time between calls should be in the 1-100 millisecond range.

The Cache information section displays hit ratio and cache size statistics:

 Cache information for squid:         Request Hit Ratios:     5min: 22.6%, 60min: 25.8%         Byte Hit Ratios:        5min: 24.6%, 60min: 38.7%         Request Memory Hit Ratios:      5min: 0.7%, 60min: 1.4%         Request Disk Hit Ratios:        5min: 6.0%, 60min: 12.4%         Storage Swap size:      41457489 KB         Storage Mem size:       10180 KB         Mean Object Size:       14.43 KB         Requests given to unlinkd:      0 

Request Hit Ratios

Here, and on subsequent lines, you'll see two hit ratio numbers: one for the last five minutes, and one for the last hour . These values are simply the percentage of HTTP requests that result in a cache hit. Here, hits include cases in which Squid validates a cached response and receives a 304 (Not Modified) reply.


Byte Hit Ratios

Squid calculates byte hit ratio by comparing the number of bytes received from origin servers (or neighbors) to the number of bytes sent to clients. When received bytes are less than sent bytes, the byte hit ratio is positive. However, it is possible to see a negative byte hit ratio. This might occur, for example, if you have a lot of clients that abort their request before receiving the entire response.


Request Memory Hit Ratios

These values represent the percentage of all cache hits that were served from memory. Or, more accurately, the percentage of all hits (not requests!) logged as TCP_MEM_HIT .


Request Disk Hit Ratios

Similarly, these values represent the percentage of "plain" cache hits served from disk. In particular, these values are the percentage of all hits logged as TCP_HIT . You'll see that the memory and disk hit percentages don't add up to 100%. This is because the other cases (such as TCP_IMS_HIT , etc.) aren't included in either disk or memory hits.


Storage Swap size

The amount of data currently cached on disk. It is always expressed in kilobytes. To compensate for space wasted in partial blocks at the end of files, Squid rounds up file sizes to the nearest filesystem block size.


Storage Mem size

The amount of data currently cached in memory. It is always expressed in kilobytes and is always a multiple of Squid's memory page size: 4 KB.


Mean Object Size

Simply the storage swap size divided by the number of cached objects. You should set the configuration directive store_avg_object_size close to the actual value reported here. Squid uses the configured value for a number of internal estimates.


Requests given to unlinkd

The unlinkd process handles file deletion external to Squid (depending on your configuration). This value simply shows how many files Squid has asked unlinkd to remove. It is zero when unlinkd isn't used.

The Median Service Times section displays the median of various service time (or response time) distributions. You'll see a value for the last five minutes and for the last hour. All values are in seconds. Squid uses the median, rather than the mean, because these distributions often have heavy tails that can significantly skew the mean value. The output looks like this:

 Median Service Times (seconds)  5 min    60 min:         HTTP Requests (All):   0.19742  0.15048         Cache Misses:          0.22004  0.17711         Cache Hits:            0.05951  0.04047         Near Hits:             0.37825  0.14252         Not-Modified Replies:  0.01309  0.01387         DNS Lookups:           0.05078  0.03223         ICP Queries:           0.00000  0.07487 

HTTP Requests (All)

These are the median response times for all HTTP requests taken together. For an HTTP request, the timer starts as soon as Squid receives the request and ends when Squid writes the last byte of the response. Thus, this time also includes DNS lookups (if any), and ICP queries to upstream neighbors (if you have them) for cache misses.


Cache Misses

This line shows the response time for cache misses only. Unless your cache hit ratio is close to 50%, the cache miss response time is close to (but a little larger than) the overall response time.


Cache Hits

The cache hit response time includes only requests logged as TCP_HIT , TCP_MEM_HIT , and TCP_OFFLINE_HIT . These are unvalidated cache hits served directly from Squid, without any communication to the origin server. Thus, your cache hit response time should be significantly less than the miss time. You should keep track of this value over time; if it climbs too high, your disk filesystem may be a performance bottleneck.


Near Hits

A near hit is a validated cache hit. It corresponds to TCP_REFRESH_HIT in access.log . For these, Squid contacts the origin server (or parent cache), which adds some latency to the response time. The server's response is a small 304 (Not Modified) message. Thus, the near hit response time is typically in between cache hits and cache misses.


Not-Modified Replies

This line shows the response times for requests logged as TCP_IMS_HIT . This occurs when the client sends a conditional (a.k.a. validation) request, and Squid serves a response without contacting the origin server. The name "not-modified" is somewhat misleading for this category because the status code received by the client isn't necessarily 304. For example, the client may send an If-modified-since request, and Squid has a fresh, cached response with a more recent modification time. Squid knows that its response is fresh and that the client's copy is stale. In this case, the client receives a 200 (OK) reply with the new object data.


DNS Lookups

The DNS service time shows how long it takes, on average, to query the DNS. This includes both name-to-address and address-to-name lookups. It doesn't include IP- and FQDN-cache hits, however. DNS queries can be a significant source of latency. If you experience performance problems with Squid, be sure to check this value. If you see a high median service time (i.e., around five seconds), make sure your primary DNS server (usually listed in /etc/resolv.conf ) is up and running.


ICP Queries

The ICP query time represents the elapsed time between an ICP query and response that causes Squid to select the corresponding neighbor as the next hop. Thus, it includes only requests logged as PARENT_HIT , SIBLING_HIT , FIRST_PARENT_MISS , and CLOSEST_PARENT_MISS . This value may not be a good estimate of the overall ICP response time because ICP query/response transactions that don't result in Squid selecting a neighbor are ignored. Due to a bug in Squid Versions 2.5.STABLE1 and earlier, ICP response time statistics aren't collected, and these values always appear as .

The Resource usage section includes a few statistics relating to CPU and memory usage:

 Resource usage for squid:         UP Time:        1840478.681 seconds         CPU Time:       70571.874 seconds         CPU Usage:      3.83%         CPU Usage, 5 minute avg:        1.33%         CPU Usage, 60 minute avg:       4.41%         Process Data Segment Size via sbrk( ): 342739 KB         Maximum Resident Size: 345612 KB         Page faults with physical i/o: 65375 

UP Time

This line simply shows the amount of time this Squid process has been running. It is expressed in seconds.


CPU Time

The amount of CPU time used by Squid, also in seconds. This value comes from the getrusage( ) system call, which might not be available on all operating systems.


CPU Usage

This section has three CPU Usage lines. The first is the CPU Time value divided by the UP Time value. It is a long-term average CPU usage measurement. The next two lines show the CPU usage for the last five minutes and the last hour.


Process Data Segment Size via sbrk( )

This line offers an estimate of Squid's process size. sbrk( ) is a low-level system call used by the memory allocation library ( malloc( ) ). The sbrk( ) technique provides only an estimate, which usually differs from values reported by programs such as ps and top . When the sbrk( ) value is greater than the Maximum Resident Size (discussed next), the Squid process is probably page faulting, and performance may be degrading.


Maximum Resident Size

This is another estimate of memory usage and process size. The maximum resident set size (RSS) value comes from the getrusage( ) system call. Although the definition of RSS may vary between operating systems, you can think of it as the maximum amount of physical memory used by the process at any one time. Squid's process size may be larger than the RSS, in which case some parts of the process are actually swapped to disk.


Page faults with physical i/o

This value also comes from getrusage( ) . A page fault occurs when the operating system must read a page of the process's memory from disk. This usually happens when the Squid process becomes too large to fit entirely in memory, or when the system has other programs competing for memory. Squid's performance suffers significantly when page faults occur. You probably won't notice any problems as long as the page-faults rate is an order of magnitude lower than the HTTP request rate.

You'll see a section called Memory usage for squid via mstats( ) if your system has the mstats( ) function. In particular, you'll have this function if the GNU malloc library ( libgnumalloc.a ) is installed. Squid reports two statistics from mstats( ) :

 Memory usage for squid via mstats( ):         Total space in arena:  415116 KB         Total free:            129649 KB 31% 

Total space in arena

This represents the total amount of memory allocated to the process. It may be similar to the value reported by sbrk( ) . Note that this value only increases over time.


Total free

This represents the amount of memory allocated to the process but not currently in use by Squid. For example, if Squid frees up some memory, it goes into this category. Squid can later reuse that memory, perhaps for a different data structure, without increasing the process size. This value fluctuates up and down over time.

The Memory accounted for section contains a few tidbits about Squid's internal memory management techniques:

 Memory accounted for:         Total accounted:       228155 KB         memPoolAlloc calls: 2282058666         memPoolFree calls: 2273301305 

Total accounted

Squid keeps track of some, but not nearly all, of the memory allocated to it. This value represents the total size of all data structures accounted for. Unfortunately, it is typically only about two- thirds of the actual memory usage. Squid uses a significant amount of memory in ways that make it difficult to track properly.


memPoolAlloc calls

memPoolAlloc( ) is the function through which Squid allocates many fixed-size data structures. This line shows how many times that function has been called.


memPoolFree calls

memPoolFree( ) is the companion function through which Squid frees memory allocated with memPoolAlloc( ) . In a steady-state condition, the two values should increase at the same rate and their difference should be roughly constant over time. If not, the code may contain a bug that frees pooled memory back to the malloc library.

The File descriptor usage section shows how many file descriptors are available to Squid and how many are in use:

 File descriptor usage for squid:         Maximum number of file descriptors:   7372         Largest file desc currently in use:    151         Number of file desc currently in use:  105         Files queued for open:                   0         Available number of file descriptors: 7267         Reserved number of file descriptors:   100         Store Disk files open:                   0 

Maximum number of file descriptors

This is the limit on open file descriptors for the squid process. This should be the same value reported by ./configure when you compiled Squid. If you don't see at least 1024 here, you should probably go back and recompile Squid after reading Section 3.3.1.


Largest file desc currently in use

This is the highest file descriptor currently open. Its value isn't particularly important but should be within 15-20% of the next line (number currently in use). This value is more useful for developers because it corresponds to the first argument of the select( ) system call.


Number of file desc currently in use

The number of currently open descriptors is an important performance metric. In general, Squid's performance decreases as the number of open descriptors increases. The kernel must work harder to scan the larger set of descriptors for activity. Meanwhile, each file descriptor waits longer (on average) to be serviced.


Files queued for open

This value will always be zero, unless you are using the aufs storage scheme (see Section 8.4). It shows how many file-open requests have been dispatched to the thread processes but have not yet returned. aufs is the only storage scheme in which disk file descriptors are opened asynchronously. [2]

[2] diskd also opens files asynchronously, but those file descriptors belong to the diskd processes, not the squid process.


Available number of file descriptors

The number of available descriptors is the maximum, minus the number currently open and the number queued for open. It represents the amount of breathing room Squid has to handle more load. When the available number gets close to the reserved number (next line), Squid stops accepting new connections so that existing transactions continue receiving service.


Reserved number of file descriptors

The number of reserved file descriptors starts out at the lesser of 100 or 25% of the maximum. Squid refuses new client connections if the number of available (free) descriptors reaches this limit. It is increased if Squid encounters an error while trying to create a new TCP socket. In this case, you'll see a message in cache.log :

 Reserved FD adjusted from 100 to 150 due to failures 

Store Disk files open

This counter shows the number of disk files currently open for reading or writing. It is always zero if you are using the diskd storage scheme because disk files are opened by the diskd processes, rather than Squid itself. If you use the max_open_disk_fds directive in squid.conf , Squid stops opening more cache files for reading or writing when it reaches that limit. If your filesystem is a bottleneck, this is a simple way to sacrifice a few cache hits for stable performance.

The Internal Data Structures section gives a quick overview of how many objects are in the cache and how many are on disk or in memory. You can find more detail about Squid's data structure allocations in the mem page (see Section 14.2.1.2). This section has a few stats:

 Internal Data Structures:        2873586 StoreEntries           1336 StoreEntries with MemObjects           1302 Hot Object Cache Items        2873375 on-disk objects 

StoreEntries

This represents the number of objects cached by Squid. Each object in the cache uses one StoreEntry structure.


StoreEntries with MemObjects

MemObject is the data structure used for objects currently being requested and for objects stored in the memory cache.


Hot Object Cache Items

The Hot Object Cache is another name for the memory cache (see Appendix B). These objects are stored entirely in memory (as well as on disk). This number should always be less than the number of entries with MemObjects .


on-disk objects

This counter shows how many objects are currently stored on disk. The counter is incremented when the entire object has been successfully written. Thus, this number isn't necessarily equal to the number of StoreEntries minus the number of Hot Objects .

14.2.1.25 filedescriptors: Process File Descriptor Allocation

This page displays a table of all file descriptors currently opened by Squid. It looks like this:

 File Type   Tout Nread  * Nwrite * Remote Address    Description ---- ------ ---- -------- -------- ----------------- ------------------------------    3 File      0       0        0                    /usr/local/squid/logs/cache.log    6 File      0       0  2083739                    /usr/local/squid/logs/access.log   12 Pipe      0       0        0                    unlinkd -> squid   13 File      0       0  2485913                    /usr/local/squid/logs/store.log   15 Pipe      0       0        0                    squid -> unlinkd   16 Socket   24  220853*    1924  65.200.216.110.80 http://downloads.mp3.com/   18 Pipe      0       0        0                    squid -> diskd   19 Socket  179     476*    1747  202.59.16.30.4171 http://ads.vesperexchange.com/   21 Pipe      0       0        0                    squid -> diskd   22 Socket   20  158783*     998  210.222.20.8.80   http://home.hanmir.com/a   24 Pipe      0       0        0                    squid -> diskd   25 Socket    1       0        0* 210.222.20.8.80   http://home.hanmir.com/b   26 Socket    0 9048307* 1578290  .0                DNS Socket   27 Pipe      0       0        0                    squid -> diskd   28 Socket    0       0        0* 66.28.234.77.80   http://updates.hotbar.com/   29 Socket    0       0*       0  .0                HTTP Socket   30 Pipe      0       0        0                    squid -> diskd   31 Socket    0      93     1126  127.0.0.1.3434    ncsa_auth #1   32 Socket    0       3       31  127.0.0.1.3438    ncsa_auth #3   33 Socket    0       0        0  127.0.0.1.3440    ncsa_auth #4   34 Socket  164    8835* 1070222* 212.47.19.52.2201 http://www.eyyubyaqubov.com/   35 Socket  177    6137*  249899* 212.47.19.25.3044 http://files10.rarlab.com/   36 Socket    0       0        0  127.0.0.1.3442    ncsa_auth #5   37 Socket    7  158783*     774  210.222.20.8.80   http://home.hanmir.com/c   38 Socket  166    1000*  148415* 202.17.13.8.5787  http://home.hanmir.com/d 

The table has seven columns:


File

This is simply the file descriptor number. The list always starts with 3 because descriptors 0, 1, and 2 are reserved for stdin , stdout , and stderr . Any other gaps in the list represent closed descriptors.


Type

The type field contains one of the following values: File , Pipe , or Socket . The File type is used both for files storing cached responses and for log files, such as cache.log and access.log . The Pipe type represents kernel pipes used for interprocess communication. The Socket type is also occasionally used for interprocess communication, but it's mostly used for HTTP (and FTP) connections to clients and servers.


Tout

This is the general-purpose timeout value for the descriptor. It is expressed in minutes. Files and Pipes usually don't have a timeout, so this value is zero. For Sockets , however, if this number of minutes go by without any activity on the descriptor, Squid calls a timeout function.


Nread

This is where Squid reports the number of bytes read from the descriptor. An asterisk (*) after the number means Squid has a function (a read handler) registered to read additional data, if there is some available.


Nwrite

This column shows the number of bytes written to the descriptor. Again, the asterisk (*) indicates that a write handler is present for the descriptor. You can usually tell if a given socket is connected to a client or to a server by comparing the number of bytes read and written. Because requests are normally smaller than responses, a server connection has a higher Nread count than Nwrite . The opposite is true for client connections.


Remote Address

For Sockets , this field shows the remote TCP address of the connection. The format is similar to what you would find in netstat -n output: an IP address followed by the TCP port number.


Description

The description field indicates the descriptor's use. For Files , you'll see a pathname; for Pipes , a description to what the pipe is connected; and for Sockets , a URI, or at least the first part of it. A description such as web.icq.com idle connection indicates an idle persistent connection to an origin server. Similarly, Waiting for next request is an idle client-side persistent connection.

By default, the File Descriptor page isn't password-protected. However, you may want to give it a password because it contains some sensitive and, perhaps, personally identifiable information.

14.2.1.26 objects: All Cache Objects

Requesting this page results in a list of all objects in the cache. Be careful with this page because it can be extremely long. Furthermore, it contains low-level information that is probably useful only to developers.

For each cached object, Squid prints a sequence of lines, most of which look like this:

 KEY FF1F6736BCC167A4C3F93275A126C5F5         STORE_OK      NOT_IN_MEMORY SWAPOUT_DONE PING_NONE         CACHABLE,DISPATCHED,VALIDATED         LV:1020824321 LU:1020824671 LM:1020821288 EX:-1         0 locks, 0 clients, 1 refs         Swap Dir 0, File 0X010AEE 

The first line shows the cache key ”a 128-bit MD5 checksum of the URI. The same MD5 checksum appears in store.log and in the metadata at the beginning of each response cached on disk.

The second line shows four state variables of the StoreEntry data structure: store_status , mem_status , swap_status , and ping_status . Refer to the Squid source code if you'd like more information about them.

The third line is a list of the StoreEntry flags that are set. Search the source code for e->flags for more information.

The fourth line shows the values of four timestamps: last-validation, last-use, last-modification, and expiration. The last-modification and expiration timestamps are taken from the origin server's HTTP response. The others are maintained by Squid.

The fifth line shows a few counters: locks, clients, and references. An entry with locks can't be removed. The clients counter shows how many clients are currently receiving data for this object. The refs counter shows how many times the object has been requested.

The sixth line shows the object's index to the on-disk storage. Each object has a 7-bit swap directory index and a 25-bit file number. Each storage scheme has a function to map these numbers into pathnames.

14.2.1.27 vm_objects: In-Memory and In-Transit Objects

This page is similar to All Cache Objects, except that it displays only objects that have a MemObject data structure. In other words, objects that are currently being requested or are stored in the memory cache. These objects are displayed like this:

 KEY 5107D49BA7F9C6BA9559E006D6DDC4B2         GET http://www.rpgplanet.com/ac2hq/cartography/dynamic/LinvakMassif.jpg         STORE_PENDING NOT_IN_MEMORY SWAPOUT_WRITING PING_DONE         CACHABLE,DISPATCHED,VALIDATED         LV:1043286120 LU:1043286122 LM:1036015230 EX:-1         4 locks, 1 clients, 1 refs         Swap Dir 1, File 00X31BD9         inmem_lo: 184784         inmem_hi: 229840         swapout: 229376 bytes queued         swapout: 229509 bytes written         Client #0, 1533a1018                 copy_offset: 217552                 seen_offset: 217552                 copy_size: 4096                 flags: 

As you can see, many of the lines are the same. However, the in-memory objects have a few additional lines. Directly following the cache key (MD5 checksum), Squid prints the request method and URI.

The inmem_lo and inmem_hi lines are byte offsets of the HTTP reply. They indicate the section of object data currently in memory. In most cases, the difference between these two should be less than the value of the maximum_object_size_in_memory directive.

The swapout : bytes queued line shows the offset for how many bytes have been given to the storage layer for writing. For objects in the SWAPOUT_DONE state, this value is the same as the object size. If the state is SWAPOUT_WRITING , Squid also shows the bytes written line, which indicates how many bytes have been successfully stored on disk.

If one or more clients are currently receiving the response, you'll see a section for each of them ( Client #0 in this example). For each client, Squid reports another pair of offset values. The first, copy_offset , is the starting point for the last time the client-side asked for data from the storage system. The second, seen_offset , is the point at which the response data has been sent to the client. Note that copy_offset is always greater than or equal to seen_offset . The copy_size indicates the maximum amount of data the client can receive from the storage system.

14.2.1.28 openfd_objects: Objects with Swapout Files Open

The format of this page is the same as for In-Memory and In-Transit Objects. The objects reported on this page should all be in the SWAPOUT_WRITING state. The page is primarily useful to developers when trying to track down file-descriptor leaks.

14.2.1.29 io: Server-Side Network read( ) Size Histograms

This page displays a histogram for each of the following four server-side protocols: HTTP, FTP, Gopher, and WAIS. The histograms show how many bytes each read( ) call received. The information is primarily useful to developers for tuning buffer sizes and other aspects of the source code.

The bins of the histogram are logarithmic to accommodate the large scale of read sizes. Here is an example:

 HTTP I/O number of reads: 9016088 Read Histogram:     1-    1:      3082  0%     2-    2:       583  0%     3-    4:       905  0%     5-    8:      2666  0%     9-   16:     16690  0%    17-   32:     88046  1%    33-   64:     19712  0%    65-  128:    116655  1%   129-  256:    749259  8%   257-  512:    633075  7%   513- 1024:    903145 10%  1025- 2048:   3664862 41%  2049- 4096:   1643747 18%  4097- 8192:    789796  9%  8193-16384:     99476  1% 16385-32768:     30059  0% 

In this case, you can see that the bin for 1025-2048 bytes is the most popular. When reading from an HTTP server, Squid got between 1025 and 2048 bytes per read 41% of the time.

14.2.1.30 counters: Traffic and Resource Counters

Squid maintains a data structure of counters. Actually, it is an array of counters. Squid shifts the array every 60 seconds and calculates 1-, 5-, and 60-minute averages from this array. This page is simply a dump of the current counter values in a format more suitable for computer processing than for reading by humans . The counters are as follows :


sample_time

The sample time is actually the time of the last shift, rather than the current time. The sample time is always within 60 seconds of the current time.


client_http.requests

The number of HTTP requests received from clients.


client_http.hits

The number of cache hits in response to client requests. A hit is any transaction logged with one of the TCP_HIT codes in access.log .


client_http.errors

The number of client transactions that resulted in an error.


client_http.kbytes_in

The amount of traffic (in kilobytes) received from clients in their requests. This is measured at the HTTP layer and doesn't include TCP, IP, and other packet headers.


client_http.kbytes_out

The amount of traffic (in kilobytes) sent to clients in responses. Also measured at the HTTP layer.


client_http.hit_kbytes_out

The amount of traffic sent to clients in responses that are cache hits. Keep in mind that some cache hits are 304 (Not Modified) responses.


server.all.requests

The number of requests forwarded to origin servers (or neighbor caches) for all server-side protocols (HTTP, FTP, Gopher, etc.).


server.all.errors

The number of server-side requests (all protocols) that resulted in some kind of error.


server.all.kbytes_in

The amount of traffic (in kilobytes) read from the server-side for all protocols.


server.all.kbytes_out

The amount of traffic written to origin servers and/or neighbor caches for server-side requests.


server.http.requests

The number of server-side requests to HTTP servers, including neighbor caches.


server.http.errors

The number of server-side HTTP requests that resulted in an error.


server.http.kbytes_in

The amount of traffic read from HTTP origin servers and neighbor caches.


server.http.kbytes_out

The amount of traffic written to HTTP origin servers and neighbor caches.


server.ftp.requests

The number of requests sent to FTP servers.


server.ftp.errors

The number of requests sent to FTP servers that resulted in an error.


server.ftp.kbytes_in

The amount of traffic read from FTP servers, including control channel traffic.


server.ftp.kbytes_out

The amount of traffic written to FTP servers, including control channel traffic.


server.other.requests

The number of "other" server-side requests. Currently, the other protocols are Gopher, WAIS, and SSL.


server.other.errors

The number of Gopher, WAIS, and SSL requests that resulted in an error.


server.other.kbytes_in

The amount of traffic read from Gopher, WAIS, and SSL servers.


server.other.kbytes_out

The amount of traffic written to Gopher, WAIS, and SSL servers.


icp.pkts_sent

The number of ICP messages sent to neighbors. This includes both queries and replies but doesn't include HTCP messages.


icp.pkts_recv

The number of ICP messages received from neighbors, including both queries and replies.


icp.queries_sent

The number of ICP queries sent to neighbors.


icp.replies_sent

The number of ICP replies sent to neighbors.


icp.queries_recv

The number of ICP queries received from neighbors.


icp.replies_recv

The number of ICP replies received from neighbors.


icp.query_timeouts

The number of times that Squid timed out waiting for ICP replies to arrive .


icp.replies_queued

The number of times Squid queued an ICP message after the initial attempt to send failed. See Section 14.2.1.24.


icp.kbytes_sent

The amount of traffic sent in all ICP messages, including both queries and replies.


icp.kbytes_recv

The amount of traffic received in all ICP messages, including both queries and replies.


icp.q_kbytes_sent

The amount of traffic sent to neighbors in ICP queries.


icp.r_kbytes_sent

The amount of traffic sent to neighbors in ICP replies.


icp.q_kbytes_recv

The amount of traffic received from neighbors in ICP queries.


icp.r_kbytes_recv

The amount of traffic received from neighbors in ICP replies.


icp.times_used

The number of times ICP resulted in the selection of a neighbor as the next-hop for a cache miss.


cd.times_used

The number of times Cache Digests resulted in the selection of a neighbor as the next-hop for a cache miss.


cd.msgs_sent

The number of Cache Digest messages sent to neighbors.


cd.msgs_recv

The number of Cache Digest messages received from neighbors.


cd.memory

The amount of memory (in kilobytes) used by enabling the Cache Digests' feature.


cd.local_memory

The amount of memory (in kilobytes) used to store Squid's own Cache Digest.


cd.kbytes_sent

The amount of traffic sent to neighbors in Cache Digest messages.


cd.kbytes_recv

The amount of traffic received from neighbors in Cache Digest messages.


unlink.requests

The number of unlink requests given to the (optional) unlinkd process.


page_faults

The number of (major) page faults as reported by getrusage( ) .


select_loops

The number of times Squid called select( ) or poll( ) in the main I/O loop.


cpu_time

The amount of CPU time (in seconds) accumulated , as reported by getrusage( ) .


wall_time

The amount of human time (in seconds) elapsed since Squid was started.


swap.outs

The number of objects (swap files) saved to disk.


swap.ins

The number of objects (swap files) read from disk.


swap.files_cleaned

The number of orphaned cache files removed by the periodic cleanup procedure.


aborted_requests

The number of server-side HTTP requests aborted due to client-side aborts.

14.2.1.31 peer_select: Peer Selection Algorithms

This page contains a lot of low-level detail about cache digests that I won't discuss. Most of the numbers are meaningful only to the developers that originally wrote the Cache Digest implementation.

However, at the end of this page is a little table that compares Algorithm usage :

 Algorithm usage: Cache Digest:      27 ( 24%) Icp:               84 ( 76%) Total:            111 (100%) 

In this example, you can see that Squid sent 111 requests to one of its neighbors: 27 are due to Cache Digests and 84 are due to ICP. In this context, ICP also includes HTCP.

14.2.1.32 digest_stats: Cache Digest and ICP Blob

This page is actually just a concatenation of the following other cache manager pages:

  • Traffic and Resource Counters

  • 5 Minute Average of Counters

  • Full Histogram Counts

  • Peer Selection Algorithms

  • Store Digest

Its only purpose is to enable developers to take a snapshot of a number of statistics with a single request.

14.2.1.33 5min: 5 Minute Average of Counters

This page shows a five-minute average of the data in the Traffic and Resource Counters page. In addition to the counters mentioned in Section 14.2.1.30, this page also contains the following values:


client_http.all_median_svc_time

The median service (response) time for all client requests from the last five minutes.


client_http.miss_median_svc_time

The median service time for cache misses from the last five minutes.


client_http.nm_median_svc_time

The five-minute median service time for requests logged as TCP_IMS_HIT . See "Not-Modified Replies" in Section 14.2.1.24.


client_http.nh_median_svc_time

The five-minute median service time for Near Hits ( TCP_REFRESH_HIT requests).


client_http.hit_median_svc_time

The five-minute median service time for unvalidated cache hits.


icp.query_median_svc_time

The five-minute median service time for ICP queries sent by Squid (how long it takes for the neighbors to reply to our queries).


icp.reply_median_svc_time

The five-minute median service time for ICP queries received by Squid (how long it takes Squid to reply to its neighbor's queries). ICP processing normally occurs faster than the process clock is updated, so this value is always zero.


dns.median_svc_time

The five-minute median service time for DNS queries.


select_fds

The mean rate at which the main I/O loop scans file descriptors with select( ) or poll( ) . Note: a low number doesn't necessarily indicate poor performance. It may just be that Squid often has no work to do.


average_select_fd_period

The mean number of seconds required to scan a file descriptor in the main I/O loop.


median_select_fds

The five-minute median number of ready file descriptors each time Squid calls select( ) or poll( ) (the median of the select( ) / poll( ) return value). Unfortunately, this value is almost always zero because Squid's functions for calculating the median don't work very well with the select_fds histogram, in which 0 and 1 are the most common values.


syscalls.selects

The five-minute mean rate of calls to select( ) / poll( ) . If Squid is using poll( ) on your system, the variable is called syscalls. polls . This value may be a little larger than select_loops , because the latter only includes calls in the main I/O loop.


syscalls.disk.opens

The five-minute mean rate of open( ) calls for disk files.


syscalls.disk. closes

The five-minute mean rate of close( ) calls for disk files.


syscalls.disk.reads

The five-minute mean rate of read( ) calls for disk files.


syscalls.disk.writes

The five-minute mean rate of write( ) calls for disk files.


syscalls.disk.seeks

The five-minute mean rate of seek( ) calls for disk files. Probably zero unless you are using aufs , which always calls seek( ) before reading.


syscalls.disk.unlinks

The five-minute mean rate of unlink( ) (or, in some cases, truncate( ) ) calls for disk files.


syscalls.sock.accepts

The five-minute mean rate of accept( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.sockets

The five- minute mean rate of socket( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.connects

The five-minute mean rate of connect( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.binds

The five-minute mean rate of bind( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.closes

The five-minute mean rate of close( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.reads

The five-minute mean rate of read( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.writes

The five-minute mean rate of write( ) calls for network sockets.


syscalls.sock.recvfroms

The five-minute mean rate of recvfrom( ) calls for network sockets. Used for UDP-based protocols, such as DNS, ICP, HTCP, and some interprocess communication.


syscalls.sock.sendtos

The five-minute mean rate of sendto( ) calls for network sockets. Used for UDP-based protocols, such as DNS, ICP, HTCP, and some interprocess communication.

14.2.1.34 60min: 60 Minute Average of Counters

This page shows a 60-minute average of the data in the Traffic and Resource Counters page. The descriptions are identical to those for the 5 Minute Average of Counters page, except the measurements are taken over one hour.

14.2.1.35 utilization: Cache Utilization

This page displays averages of the counters (see Traffic and Resource Counters and 5 Minute Average of Counters) over various time spans . The same values are reported for 5-minute, 15-minute, 1-hour, 8-hour, 1-day, and 3-day intervals.

This page, with a poorly chosen name, exists primarily so that developers can take a quick snapshot of statistics for testing purposes.

14.2.1.36 histograms: Full Histogram Counts

This page displays the current histogram values (since Squid was started) for a number of measurements:

  • client_http.all_svc_time

  • client_http.miss_svc_time

  • client_http.nm_svc_time

  • client_http.nh_svc_time

  • client_http.hit_svc_time

  • icp.query_svc_time

  • icp.reply_svc_time

  • dns.svc_time

  • select_fds_hist

These are the same measurements described in Section 14.2.1.33, except that here Squid gives the full histogram, instead of the mean or median.

Depending on the type of histogram, you may see two or three columns. The first column is the bin number and lower bound on the bin value. The second column is the number of counts for that bin. The optional third column is the number of counts divided by the "size" of the bin. The last column is probably only interesting for log-based histograms, in which the bin size isn't constant.

14.2.1.37 active_requests: Client-Side Active Requests

This page shows a list of currently active client-side requests. The list is sorted starting with the most recent, and ending with the oldest requests. The information given here is primarily useful to developers. A typical entry looks like this:

 Connection: 0x84ecd10         FD 132, read 1273, wrote 12182         FD desc: http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ.html         in: buf 0xa063000, offset 0, size 4096         peer: 206.168.0.9:1058         me: 192.43.244.42:3128         nrequests: 3         defer: n 0, until 0 uri http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ.html log_type TCP_MISS out.offset 0, out.size 0 req_sz 392 entry 0x960c680/3B49762ABF444D80B6465552F6CFAD4C old_entry 0x0/N/A start 1066036250.669955 (2.240814 seconds ago) 

Connection

The internal memory address of the connection structure.


FD

The file descriptor for the TCP connection, followed by the number of bytes read and written.


FD desc

A short description of the socket, usually a URI. This is the same as in Section 14.2.1.25.


in

The internal memory location of the input buffer, the offset at which Squid will place data after the next read( ) call, and the size of the input buffer.


peer

The remote socket address of the TCP connection. You can correlate this value with what you see in netstat -n output.


me

The local socket address of the TCP connection.


nrequests

The number of HTTP requests received on this connection. A value greater than 1 indicates persistent connection reuse.


defer

Indicates whether Squid is postponing reads on the socket.


uri

The URI from the client's request. Unlike FD desc , this one isn't truncated.


log_type

The cache status code that appears in access.log when this transaction is complete.


out.offset

The offset, relative to the start of the HTTP reply message, in which the client side has requested data from the storage system.


out.size

The number of response bytes written to the client.


req_sz

The size of the client's HTTP request. Note, for persistent connections, this refers only to the current request.


entry

The memory address and MD5 hash of the corresponding StoreEntry structure.


old_entry

For validation requests, this is the memory address and MD5 hash of the cached response StoreEntry .


start

The time at which Squid began processing this request.

14.2.1.38 store_digest: Store Digest

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-cache-digests option. It displays a few statistics about Squid's own cache digest. It looks like this:

 store digest: size: 620307 bytes          entries: count: 324806 capacity: 992490 util: 33%          deletion attempts: 0          bits: per entry: 5 on: 1141065 capacity: 4962456 util: 23%          bit-seq: count: 1757902 avg.len: 2.82          added: 324806 rejected: 611203 ( 65.30 %) del-ed: 0          collisions: on add: 0.08 % on rej: 0.07 % 

size

The number of bytes that the digest occupies in memory.


entries count

The number of cached objects entered into the digest.


entries capacity

The target capacity for the digest. Note, this isn't a hard limit, but rather an estimate for optimally sizing the digest.


entries util

The percentage of entries added compared to the capacity.


deletion attempts

Squid doesn't currently support deletion of cache digest entries, so this is always zero.


bits per entry

The number of bits that each item turns on. The same as the digest_bits_per_entry value from squid.conf .


bits on

The number of bits that have been turned on so far.


bits capacity

The total number of bits in the digest. Equal to the digest size multiplied by eight.


bit-seq count

The number of same-bit sequences in the digest. For example, the pattern 110100011111 has 5 sequences of 1s and 0s.


bit-seq avg.len

The mean length of same-bit sequences.


added

The number of entries added to the digest since it was created.


rejected

The number of entries not added to the digest. An entry may not be added because it isn't cachable, is too large, stale, or about to become stale, etc.


del-ed

Squid doesn't currently support deletion of cache digest entries, so this is always zero.


collisions on add

This is the percentage of additions that didn't turn on any new bits. Recall that Bloom filters have the property that two or more entries may turn on the same bit.


collisions on rej

This is the percentage of rejected additions that wouldn't have turned on any new bits.

14.2.1.39 storedir: Store Directory Stats

This page displays some statistics from the storage system. First, you'll see a few global values. For example:

 Store Directory Statistics: Store Entries          : 2873564 Maximum Swap Size      : 46080000 KB Current Store Swap Size: 41461672 KB Current Capacity       : 90% used, 10% free 

Store Entries

The number of StoreEntry objects. Most, but not necessarily all, of these are for on-disk objects.


Maximum Swap Size

The sum of all cache_dir sizes.


Current Store Swap Size

The total amount of cached data currently stored on disk. Note that Squid rounds response sizes (e.g., 1722 bytes) up to the nearest multiple filesystem block size (e.g., 2048 bytes) when incrementing and decrementing this value.


Current Capacity

The percentage of the maximum disk space currently in use. The percentage in use should normally stay below the cache_swap_high value.

Next, you'll see a section for each cache_dir . It looks something like this:

 Store Directory #1 (diskd): /cache1 FS Block Size 1024 Bytes First level subdirectories: 16 Second level subdirectories: 64 Maximum Size: 15360000 KB Current Size: 13823996 KB Percent Used: 90.00% Filemap bits in use: 958439 of 2097152 (46%) Filesystem Space in use: 14030485/17370434 KB (81%) Filesystem Inodes in use: 959440/4340990 (22%) Flags: SELECTED Pending operations: 0 Removal policy: lru LRU reference age: 23.63 days 

Store Directory #

The directory number, type, and pathname.


FS Block Size

The filesystem block size, determined by the statfs( ) or statvfs ( ) system calls. If these functions aren't available or return an error, the block size defaults to 2048 bytes.

The next few lines are actually storage scheme-dependent. For the most part, ufs , aufs , and diskd are very similar and all report the same statistics.


First level subdirectories

The number of first-level subdirectories you told Squid to use on the cache_dir line.


Second level subdirectories

The number of second-level subdirectories you told Squid to use on the cache_dir line.


Maximum Size

The maximum allowed size for this cache directory.


Current Size

The amount of disk space currently in use.


Percent Used

The percentage of cache_dir space currently in use.


Filemap bits in use

Squid uses a bitmap to keep track of file numbers that are allocated and free. This line shows the number and percentage of bits in use. The filemap grows automatically as needed, so don't worry if it shows up as 99% full.


Filesystem Space in use

These numbers come from the statfs( ) / statvfs( ) system calls. These should be the same values as you'd see from the df command. Squid doesn't use these numbers, other than to report them here for your information. Note that these values may be larger than Current Size , especially if the partition is used for more than Squid's cache.


Filesystem Inodes in use

These numbers also come from statfs( ) / statvfs( ) . They are present to remind you that running out of inodes is just as bad as running out of free space. Unfortunately, if you run out of inodes, you'll probably be forced to newfs the partition.


Flags

Possible values include SELECTED and READ-ONLY . The SELECTED flag means that this particular cache_dir was most recently selected by the cache directory selection algorithm (see Section 7.4). The READ-ONLY flag means that the cache directory has been marked read-only in the configuration file (see Section 7.1.5).


Pending operations

This line appears only for diskd cache directories. It shows the number of I/O requests dispatched to the diskd process that have not yet been acknowledged .

That's the end of the scheme-specific data. The remaining lines are specific to the cache_dir replacement algorithm:


Removal policy

Possible values include lru (the default) or heap . Note that for heap , you won't see the algorithm name (LFU, GDSF, or LRU).


LRU reference age

If the removal policy is lru , you'll also see this line. It shows the age of the oldest object in the LRU list.

14.2.1.40 store_check_cachable_stats: storeCheckCachable( ) Stats

This page displays a table of counters from the storeCheckCachable( ) function. It is called for most responses, just before Squid attempts to open a disk file for writing.

Squid knows that some responses can't be cached, based entirely on the request. These responses aren't included in the storeCheckCachable( ) statistics.


The table includes the following lines:


no.not_entry_cachable

The ENTRY_CACHABLE flag was cleared for some reason.


no.release_request

The RELEASE_REQUEST flag was set while reading the response. This may be due to an error (such as receiving a partial response) or to the rules of the transfer protocol.

In some versions of Squid, this counter is always zero because the storeReleaseRequest( ) function always clears the ENTRY_CACHABLE bit, causing such objects to be counted as no.not_entry_cachable instead.


no.wrong_content_length

The actual content length doesn't match the Content-Length header value.

In some versions of Squid, this counter is always zero because storeReleaseRequest( ) is always called if the response size doesn't match the expected content length.


no.negative_cached

The ENTRY_NEGCACHED flag was set. See the description for TCP_NEGATIVE_HIT in Section 13.2.1.


no.too_big

The response body was larger than the maximum_object_size value.


no.too_small

The response body was smaller than the minimum_object_size value.


no.private_key

The response has a private cache key, indicating that it can't be shared with other users.


no.too_many_open_files

The Squid process was low on free file descriptors.


no.too_many_open_fds

Squid had more than max_open_disk_fds opened at one time.


yes.default

The response was cachable because it did not meet any of the preceding criteria.

14.2.1.41 store_io: Store IO Interface Stats

This short table contains four lines related to allocating disk storage for a new response. For example:

 Store IO Interface Stats create.calls 2825670 create.select_fail 0 create.create_fail 0 create.success 2825670 

create.calls

The number of calls to the function that creates a new disk file.


create.select_fail

The number of times that the create operation failed because the cache_dir selection algorithm did not select a cache directory. The default selection algorithm, least-load , fails if it thinks all cache directories are too busy.


create.create_fail

The number of times that the create operation failed at the storage layer. This may happen if the open( ) call returns an error or if the storage system (e.g., diskd ) elects to not open a disk file for some reason (e.g., overload condition).


create.success

The number of times the create operation succeeded.

14.2.1.42 pconn: Persistent Connection Utilization Histograms

This page displays two histograms. The first is for client-side persistent connection usage. For example:

 Client-side persistent connection counts:         req/         conn      count         ----  ---------            0      74292            1   14362705            2    3545955            3    2068486            4    1411423            5    1030023            6     778722            7     603649            8     474592            9     376154           10     301396 

On the left is the number of requests per connection. On the right is the number of times a client connection had that many requests. Most likely, you'll see that one request/connection has the highest count and that the counts decrease as the number of requests/connection increases.

The second table has the same information, but for server-side HTTP connections. You should see the same sort of pattern here, with one request/connection having the highest count.

14.2.1.43 refresh: Refresh Algorithm Statistics

The refresh page shows a few tables relating to the freshness of cached objects. Internally, Squid keeps track of the way different modules use the refresh functions. The first table shows how many calls each module has made. The really interesting data is contained in the remaining tables, however.

The HTTP histogram shows the breakdown of freshness checks for client HTTP requests. For example:

 HTTP histogram: Count   %Total  Category      0    0.00  Fresh: request max-stale wildcard      0    0.00  Fresh: request max-stale value 173984    9.76  Fresh: expires time not reached 462757   25.97  Fresh: refresh_pattern last-mod factor percentage     42    0.00  Fresh: refresh_pattern min value      0    0.00  Fresh: refresh_pattern override expires      0    0.00  Fresh: refresh_pattern override lastmod   5521    0.31  Stale: response has must-revalidate      0    0.00  Stale: changed reload into IMS      0    0.00  Stale: request has no-cache directive 470912   26.43  Stale: age exceeds request max-age value 455073   25.54  Stale: expires time reached  65612    3.68  Stale: refresh_pattern max age rule 144706    8.12  Stale: refresh_pattern last-mod factor percentage   3274    0.18  Stale: by default 1781881 100.00  TOTAL 

Note, the rules aren't necessarily evaluated in the order in which they appear in the table. Here's what each line means:


Fresh: request max-stale wildcard

Squid considers the cached response fresh because the request includes a max-stale directive without any value. For example:

 GET /blah... HTTP/1.1 Cache-control: max-stale 

According to RFC 2616: "If no value is assigned to max-stale , then the client is willing to accept a stale response of any age."


Fresh: request max-stale value

Squid considers the cached response fresh because the request includes a max-stale directive with a particular value, which is larger than the amount of time since the object expired .


Fresh: expires time not reached

Squid considers the cached response fresh because its expiration time has not yet been reached.


Fresh: refresh_pattern last-mod factor percentage

Squid considers the cached response fresh because it matches one of the refresh_pattern rules and has a last-modified factor (LM-factor) value that's less than that specified by the rule. See Section 7.7.


Fresh: refresh_pattern min value

Squid considers the cached response fresh because it matches one of the refresh_pattern rules and its age is less than the min value specified by the rule. See Section 7.7.


Fresh: refresh_pattern override expires

Squid considers the cached response fresh because it matched one of the refresh_pattern rules with the override-expire option. This option causes Squid to give precedence to the refresh_pattern minimum value over the object's expiration time. Note: using the override-expire option is a violation of RFC 2616.


Fresh: refresh_pattern override lastmod

Squid considers the cached response fresh because it matched one of the refresh_pattern rules with the override-lastmod option. This option causes Squid to give precedence to the refresh_pattern minimum value over the LM-factor value. Note: using the override-lastmod option is a violation of RFC 2616.


Stale: response has must-revalidate

Squid considers the cached response stale because it contains a Cache-Control : must-revalidate directive.


Stale: changed reload into IMS

Squid considers the cached response stale because it matches one of the refresh_pattern rules with the reload-into-ims option. With this option, Squid turns a request with Cache-Control : no-cache (or similar) into a cache validation. Note: using the reload-into-ims option is a violation of RFC 2616.


Stale: request has no-cache directive

Squid considers the cached response stale because the request contains a Cache-Control : no-cache directive.


Stale: age exceeds request max-age value

Squid considers the cached response stale because the request has a max-age directive, which is less than the response's age.


Stale: expires time reached

Squid considers the cached response stale because its expiration time has been reached.


Stale: refresh_pattern max age rule

Squid considers the cached response stale because it matches one of the refresh_pattern rules, and its age is greater than the max value specified by the rule.


Stale: refresh_pattern last-mod factor percentage

Squid considers the cached response stale because it matches one of the refresh_pattern rules, and its LM-factor value is greater than the factor specified by the rule.


Stale: by default

Squid considers the cached response stale by default, because it didn't meet any of the other criteria.

Following the HTTP histogram , you'll see the same data for ICP , HTCP , Cache Digests , and On Store .

The On Store table represents freshness checks for responses that are coming into Squid's cache (i.e., cachable misses). Note, however, that Squid does store stale responses (as long as they have a cache validator). Don't be alarmed if you see some stale responses in the On Store histogram.

14.2.1.44 delay: Delay Pool Levels

This page displays the Delay Pool statistics. Squid has three classes of pools (1, 2, 3) and three types of buckets (aggregate, individual, and network). A class 1 pool has only an aggregate bucket, a class 2 pool has both aggregate and individual, and a class 3 pool has all three.

An aggregate bucket looks like this:

 Aggregate:         Max: 16384         Restore: 4096         Current: 6144 

The values are all in bytes. Max is the size of the bucket, which is the number of bytes the bucket can hold. Restore is the number of bytes added to the bucket each second. Current is the number of bytes currently in the bucket. If nobody uses the bytes, the bucket fills until it reaches the maximum size.

An individual bucket is almost the same:

 Individual:         Max: 20000         Restore: 5000         Current: 1:18760 9:4475 14:20000 

The only difference is that the Current line displays a number of different values, one for each host number. The host number is defined as the last octet of an IPv4 address. In this example, the host numbers are 1, 9, and 14. In a class 2 delay pool, the host numbers from different networks share the same bucket. For example, 192.168.0.1 and 192.168.44.1 both share the bucket for host number 1. In a class 3 pool, however, each network number (third octet) has its own array of individual buckets. Thus, for a class 3 pool, the individual buckets appear this way:

 Individual:         Max: 20000         Rate: 5000         Current [Network 0]: 1:12000         Current [Network 44]: 1:17000 

A network bucket (for class 3 pools only) is similar as well:

 Network:         Max: 30000         Rate: 15000         Current: 0:3912 7:30000 

In this case, the Current line shows the current level for each network number (third octet). See Appendix C for more information about Delay Pools.

14.2.1.45 forward: Request Forwarding Statistics

The table on this page shows how many attempts were made to forward each request, with their results. Upon receiving some status codes, Squid gives up immediately. For others, however, Squid keeps trying. Each row of the table is a different HTTP status code (200, 401, 404, etc.). Each column is the number of forwarding attempts. The value in each cell is how many requests were forwarded that many times, resulting in the corresponding status code. This information helps developers understand whether or not it makes sense to retry a request after receiving certain types of responses. Here is an example:

 Status  try#1   try#2   try#3   try#4   try#5   try#6   try#7   try#8   try#9  try#10   0      1       0       0       0       0       0       0        0       0      0 200     3970083 111015  51185   29002   18242   12097   8191    6080    4490   6140 201     57      0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 202     162     0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 204     1321    11      0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 206     624288  453     25      9       4       3       0       1       0      0 207     147     0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 300     23      0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 301     23500   25      2       0       0       0       1       0       0      0 302     339332  3806    153     26      6       4       2       3       0      1 303     101     1       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 304     772831  3510    125     21      7       8       8       5       3      2 307     7       0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 400     529     1       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 401     1559    0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 403     5098    30      1       1       0       0       0       0       0      0 404     100800  216     25      6       7       1       2       4       1      5 405     1       0       0       0       0       0       0       0       0      0 ... 

A value of 29,002 in the cell under try#4 and in the row for status 200 means that there were 29,002 times when Squid finally got a successful response after 4 forwarding attempts. If you look at the table, you may see some unknown status codes. Squid keeps track of all status codes up to 600, even those it doesn't know about. See Table 13-1 for the list of codes that Squid does know about.

14.2.1.46 client_list: Cache Client List

The cache client list shows a handful of statistics for each client IP address accessing Squid, which looks like this:

 Address: 206.168.0.9 Name: 206.168.0.9 Currently established connections: 0     ICP Requests 59000         UDP_HIT                 1609   3%         UDP_MISS               57388  97%         UDP_INVALID                3   0%     HTTP Requests 11281         TCP_HIT                  656   6%         TCP_MISS                3464  31%         TCP_REFRESH_HIT         4477  40%         TCP_REFRESH_MISS         767   7%         TCP_CLIENT_REFRESH_M     397   4%         TCP_IMS_HIT             1082  10%         TCP_SWAPFAIL_MISS          7   0%         TCP_NEGATIVE_HIT          13   0%         TCP_MEM_HIT              418   4% 

The Address line, obviously, shows the client's IP address. Name is the same, unless you have log_fqdn enabled, and the DNS reports a name for the address. The Currently established connections line shows how many HTTP connections are currently open between the client and Squid.

If the client has sent any ICP queries, you'll see a breakdown of the results here. In this example, only 3% of this client's ICP queries were hits. Note, this page doesn't currently include HTCP result statistics. Finally, you'll see a breakdown of HTTP request result codes.

The client database consumes a fair amount of memory, especially if you have a large number of client IP addresses accessing Squid. You can disable the database entirely, thus conserving memory, with the client_db directive. Also note that there is no way to clear the counters or to remove entries while Squid is running.

14.2.1.47 netdb: Network Measurement Database

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-icmp option (see Section 10.5). On this page you'll find quite a lot of IP addresses, hostnames, packet counters, and RTT values. It looks something like this:

 Network DB Statistics: Network          recv/sent     RTT  Hops Hostnames 165.123.34.0        7/   7    12.7   8.6 onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu                                          www.library.upenn.edu                                          digital.library.upenn.edu     rtp.us.ircache.net        17.0  11.0     sj.us.ircache.net         71.0  17.3 209.202.204.0       4/   4    12.8  10.0 adbuyer3.lycos.com     rtp.us.ircache.net        20.6  15.0     sj.us.ircache.net         77.6  15.0 63.151.139.0       17/  17    12.8   9.0 www.originlab.com     sj.us.ircache.net         80.0  12.0 209.68.20.0        23/  23    12.8  11.7 www6.tomshardware.com www.guestbook.nu     rtp.us.ircache.net        34.9  15.1     sj.us.ircache.net         73.9  14.7 

Each /24 network is listed, in order of increasing round-trip time. You can see how many ICMP pings have been sent and received, the average RTT, and the estimated router hop-count . The Hostnames field shows the hostnames that resolve to addresses within the /24 network. If Squid has ICMP measurements from its neighbors for the network, those are printed as well. In this example, the local cache is closer to all the networks than its neighbors (rtp.us.ircache.net and sj.us.ircache.net).

14.2.1.48 asndb: AS Number Database

Although this page is always available, it contains interesting data only if you are using one of the Autonomous System (AS) ACLs, such as src_as or dst_as .

When you use an AS-based ACL, Squid queries the Routing Arbiter database (whois.ra.net) to discover the IP networks associated with the AS number. The results of those queries are displayed on this page. The output looks like this:

 Address       AS Numbers    128.98.0.0/16       7    146.80.0.0/16       7    192.5.28.0/24       7    192.5.29.0/24       7    192.5.30.0/24       7 192.107.178.0/24       7 192.135.183.0/24       5637  194.61.177.0/24       7  194.61.180.0/24       7  194.61.183.0/24       7  194.83.162.0/24       7 
14.2.1.49 carp: CARP Information

This page is available only with the ./configure ”enable-carp option and if you have some CARP parents configured. Squid displays a table of all CARP parents, which looks like this:

 Hostname       Hash Multiplier     Factor     Actual bo1.us.ircache.net   f142425b   0.894427   0.400000   0.527950 bo2.us.ircache.net   12180f04   1.118034   0.600000   0.472050 

Hash is the neighbor's hash value from the CARP algorithm. Multiplier is another value used by the algorithm. Factor is taken from the carp-load-factor option on the cache_dir line in squid.conf . Actual is the actual distribution of requests among the CARP parents. Ideally, it should match the Factor value.

14.2.1.50 server_list: Peer Cache Statistics

This page displays various counters and statistics for your neighbor caches. For example:

 Sibling    : pa.us.ircache.net/3128/4827 Flags      : htcp Address[0] : 192.6.19.203 Status     : Up AVG RTT    : 14 msec OPEN CONNS : 19 LAST QUERY :        4 seconds ago LAST REPLY :        4 seconds ago PINGS SENT :     9119 PINGS ACKED:     9115 100% FETCHES    :      109   1% IGNORED    :     9114 100% Histogram of PINGS ACKED:         Misses      9114 100%         Hits           1   0% keep-alive ratio: 100% 

Type

The first line shows the neighbor type (parent, sibling, or multicast group), followed by the hostname and port numbers. The first port number is for HTTP requests, while the second is for ICP or HTCP.


Flags

Here you'll see any of the cache_peer options that you may have specified, such as no-query , closest -only , and more. See Section 10.3.1 for the complete list.


Address[ ]

This line displays the IP address(es) associated with the hostname. The number in brackets is the number of addresses. Squid stores up to 10 addresses for each neighbor.


Status

The status line indicates whether Squid thinks the neighbor is Up or Down . See Section 10.3.2.


AVG RTT

This is the running average RTT for ICP/HTCP queries to the neighbor.


OPEN CONNS

This is the number of HTTP connections currently open to the neighbor.


LAST QUERY

This indicates the amount of time since Squid last sent an ICP/HTCP query to the neighbor.


LAST REPLY

This indicates the amount of time since Squid last received an ICP/HTCP reply from the neighbor.


PINGS SENT

The number of ICP/HTCP queries sent to the neighbor.


PINGS ACKED

The number of ICP/HTCP replies received back from the neighbor.


FETCHES

The number of HTTP requests sent to the neighbor. The percentage is based on the PINGS ACKED number. Unfortunately, the FETCHES number counts requests forwarded for any reason (ICP, HTCP, Cache Digests, default parent, etc.). Thus, the percentage doesn't always make sense and may be higher than 100%.


IGNORED

The number of ICP/HTCP replies ignored. The most common reason that Squid ignores an ICP/HTCP reply is that it is too late.


Histogram of PINGS ACKED

Here you'll see a breakdown of ICP/HTCP results. For ICP neighbors, Squid prints the ICP status codes ( ICP_HIT , ICP_MISS , etc.). For HTCP neighbors, the only categories are Hits and Misses .


keep-alive ratio

This shows the percentage of times that Squid wanted an HTTP connection to be persistent, and the neighbor agreed. Note, this doesn't indicate anything about whether the connection was actually reused, only that both sides agreed that it could be.

14.2.1.51 non_peers: List of Unknown Sites Sending ICP messages

This page shows a list of clients that send unauthorized ICP (but not HTCP) queries. The list is the same format as the Cache Client List page.

14.2.2 Cache Manager Access Controls

The cache manager interface provides a lot of information. Much of it is sensitive and should be kept private. For example, the Cache Client List reveals the IP addresses of users, the Process Filedescriptor Allocation page shows URIs currently being requested, and the Current Squid Configuration displays the values from squid.conf , including passwords and access control rules. To keep unwanted visitors from browsing the cache manager pages, you must carefully configure access to it.

14.2.2.1 http_access

All cache manager requests use the pseudo-protocol scheme cache_object . The best way to protect the cache manager is restrict the IP addresses allowed to make cache_object requests. The default squid.conf contains these lines:

 acl Manager proto cache_object acl Localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255 http_access allow Manager Localhost http_access deny Manager 

Thus, cache manager requests from the local host (127.0.0.1) are allowed, but all others are denied . If you have additional trusted hosts, you may want to add them to the access rules also. Make sure these lines are at the top of your http_access rules.

14.2.2.2 cachemgr_passwd

You may also want to modify the default cachemgr_passwd settings. Some of the cache manager pages require a password, so you won't be able to view those until you add one. For example, if you want to use the Current Squid Configuration page, you must assign it a password:

 cachemgr_passwd JeckCy config 

You can have a number of different passwords, but each action may have only one password. You may want to use a different password for less sensitive pages:

 cachemgr_passwd byDroth filedescriptors client_list netdb 

To disable a cache manager action, use disable as the password:

 cachemgr_passwd disable netdb 

To enable the sensitive actions without requiring a password, use none :

 cachemgr_passwd none offline_toggle 

If you want to give the same password to all actions, use the keyword all :

 cachemgr_passwd Knoujush all 

When using the command-line cache manager interface (e.g., squidclient ), put an @ sign and the password after the action name. For example:

 squidclient mgr:objects@byDroth  less 

Note that cache manager passwords aren't printed when you request the Current Squid Configuration page (see Section 14.2.1.7).

14.2.2.3 cachemgr.cgi

If you use cachemgr.cgi , the IP address of your HTTP server must be able to make cache manager requests to Squid. This opens up a back-door security hole. Anyone who can execute the CGI program on your server will be able to view the cache manager pages. The passwords described earlier can help, but you may also want to install access controls on your HTTP server so that only certain people can execute cachemgr.cgi .

The main cachemgr.cgi page has a form with Username and Password fields. The username is purely informational. If you have multiple administrators in your organization, each person can enter their own name for auditing purposes.

If you leave the password field blank, the password-protected pages are disabled. Entering a password activates links for those pages. cachemgr.cgi is stateless, so the password must be included as a URI parameter in links. Furthermore, the password encoding scheme isn't very sophisticated and trivial to break. Because many applications (such as Squid!) log the URIs of HTTP requests, your cache-manager password may be logged or even observed by an untrusted third party. If you really want to keep your cache manager passwords secret, never use them with cachemgr.cgi or from any remote system.

14.2.3 Reasons to Dislike the Cache Manager

The cache manager interface leaves much to be desired. It has a very unpolished feel. Novice administrators will probably find it difficult to use and understand. One of the first problems you might notice is that the menu (or table of contents) is unorganized. There is no logical order or grouping. The first items in the list provide low-level information primarily meant for developers. Currently, the order is determined by the initialization sequence in the source code.

The output is often ugly. The cachemgr.cgi program renders very bland -looking HTML pages. There are no icons or graphics of any kind. Furthermore, many of the pages are simply presented as unformatted text. cachemgr.cgi doesn't do much more than format tab-delimited lines as HTML tables and put <A> tags around some URIs. Some of the cache manager pages are structured so that the output can be easily parsed by computer programs, rather than humans.

By today's standards, the cache manager has very weak security. You are essentially forced to use address-based controls and cleartext passwords. If you allow cache manager requests only from localhost, and your system security is good, you'll be relatively safe.

14.2.4 Squid-RRD

I personally use the cache manager to populate a number of RRDTool databases (http://www.rrdtool.com/). RRDTool is nice package for storing and displaying time-series data. It allows you to archive data at different time scales (e.g., days, weeks, months, years) in a database that doesn't grow in size over time.

I use a Perl script that runs every five minutes from cron . It issues cache manager requests for a number of pages and extracts the values that I am interested in. These values are stored in the RRD files.

RRDTool also generates nice-looking graphs, from either a CGI script or standalone program. I use the CGI program and check the graphs at least daily. See Figure 14-2 for some samples from one of my own Squid boxes.

Figure 14-2. Some sample RRD graphs from RRDTool and cache manager data
figs/sq_1402.gif

You can find my scripts and instructions for integrating the cache manager and RRDTool at http://www.squid-cache.org/~wessels/squid-rrd/.

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Squid
Squid: The Definitive Guide
ISBN: 0596001622
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 401
Authors: Duane Wessels

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