How to Install Squid with Active Directory Authentication on Debian

Squid is a caching proxy software, licensed under GNU GPL, (free software).
It can help your Organization to reduce bandwidth and improves response times by caching and reusing frequently-requested web pages.
Squid has extensive access controls and if you don’t mind Command Line Interface is not too hard to configure. It runs on most available operating systems including Windows.
The following article is a step by step HOW TO Install Squid on Debian. Most of the steps are easily applicable to any other Linux distribution such as: RedHat, Suse, Ubuntu, etc…

Hardware requirements

Choose the machine wisely – if you are running a 50 computers Network a PIII should be enough provided that all you do is Web Caching and Filtering.
The memory is the most important and after that the disk speed. If you plan your proxy for a bigger Network you should consider using SCSI drives or SAS, and a faster CPU.
Memory requirements are explained later in the document.

Package Installation

Instal Debian minimal. The install cd, (only 650Mb) should be enough for this.
Reboot after installing and add packages with Aptitude (grafical interface) or "apt-get install program".
Add the following packages:
Openldap
Samba
Kerberos apt-get install krb5-{admin-server,kdc}
PAM apt-get install libpam0g-dev
Squid
Apache if you want proxy Auto-Configuration apt-get install apache2
Dansguardian if you need advanced WEB filtering
SARG if you want a log analyzer for your WEB access/filter

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Configure Samba

Samba is going to be used for authentication.
Note that if you run squid in transparent mode the authentication will not work.

#nano -w /etc/samba/smb.conf

Add or remove daemons to autostart
#update-rc.d winbind defaults #update-rc.d samba defaults

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[global] netbios name = proxy realm = SUBDOMAIN.DOMAIN.ROOT workgroup = SUBDOMAIN security = ADS password server = server1.subdomain.domain.root server2.subdomain.domain.root socket options = TCP_NODELAY SO_RCVBUF=8192 SO_SNDBUF=8192 idmap uid = 10000-20000 domain master = no local master = no preferred master = no winbind enum groups = yes winbind enum users = yes winbind uid = 10000-20000 winbind gid = 10000-20000 winbind separator = + winbind use default domain = Yes encrypt passwords = yes log level = 5 passdb:5 auth:10 winbind:5 server string = proxy dns proxy = no log file = /var/log/samba/log.%m max log size = 1000 syslog only = no syslog = 0 encrypt passwords = true load printers = no
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Do not add other parameters to the configuration file as they are not needed.
You can always tweak your configuration file later on if you need additional tweaking. If you do need further modifications do one at a time and test it extensively before release to production.
After editing smb.conf run the following command
# testparm
This will test your samba configuration file against any errors.
If there are no errors restart samba:
proxy:~# /etc/init.d/samba restart
proxy:~# /etc/init.d/winbind start
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Add the server to the domain
#net ads join "Ottawa Computers/Servers" -U Administrator -S server1.sub-domain.domain.edu
If you have Windows 7 you might get this in your /var/log/samba/log.wb: "NTLM CRAP authentication for user returned NT_STATUS_INVALID_PARAM"
If you get it follow the instructions below to tell Windows to use NTLM version1. Note that this is a security downgrade and it opens the door for an SMB man-in-the-middle attack. Asses the risks and the advantages before you do the change.

Run local GP on W7 gpedit.msc and look for:
Local Policies -» Security Options -» Network security: LAN Manager authentication level
Change from "Not Defined" to "LM & NTLM – Use NTLMv2 session if negotiated"
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Configure Squid

Make a backup copy of the default configuration file:
# cp /etc/squid/squid.conf /etc/squid/squid.conf.original
Edit the file squid.conf:
#nano –w /etc/squid/squid.conf
Replace everything in the file with the below text:

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#Proxy configurationuration - /etc/squid.squid.conf

# AUTHENTICATION # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- auth_param ntlm program /usr/bin/ntlm_auth --helper-protocol=squid-2.5-ntlmssp auth_param ntlm children 30 auth_param basic program /usr/bin/ntlm_auth --helper-protocol=squid-2.5-basic auth_param basic children 5 auth_param basic realm Squid Proxy Server auth_param basic credentialsttl 2 hours acl authenticated_users proxy_auth REQUIRED http_access allow authenticated_users auth_param ntlm keep_alive on

# ACCESS CONTROLS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Deafult acl’s acl all src all acl manager proto cache_object acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/32 acl to_localhost dst 127.0.0.0/8

#Declare your local network and any additional subnets acl localnet src 192.168.100.0/24 # RFC1918 possible internal network #acl remotesite src 192.168.200.0/24

#You would like that some of the users to be excluded from the logging. ###acl bosses src 192.168.100.255/30 ###log_access deny bosses

#Tell Squid to not log google.ca #Define the acl for google using regex acl google url_regex ^http://www.google.ca #Deny logging the acl log_access deny google

#Allow the access for your localnet. http_access allow localnet #http_access allow remotesite

#Define allowed ports acl SSL_ports port 443 # https acl SSL_ports port 563 # snews acl SSL_ports port 873 # rsync acl Safe_ports port 80 # http acl Safe_ports port 21 # ftp acl Safe_ports port 443 # https acl Safe_ports port 70 # gopher acl Safe_ports port 210 # wais acl Safe_ports port 1025-65535 # unregistered ports acl Safe_ports port 280 # http-mgmt acl Safe_ports port 488 # gss-http acl Safe_ports port 591 # filemaker acl Safe_ports port 777 # multiling http acl Safe_ports port 631 # cups acl Safe_ports port 873 # rsync acl Safe_ports port 901 # SWAT acl purge method PURGE acl CONNECT method CONNECT

http_access allow manager localhost http_access deny manager http_access allow purge localhost http_access deny purge http_access deny !Safe_ports http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports http_access allow localnet http_access allow localhost

# And finally deny all other access to this proxy http_access deny all

# NETWORK OPTIONS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- http_port 3128

# MEMORY CACHE OPTIONS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #The memory needed for caching used files. The more you have the faster works. (No disk access.) cache_mem 256 MB #Objects bigger than this should be stored on the hard-drive. This can be lower than 8kb if your server has little memory. maximum_object_size_in_memory 8 KB

# DISK CACHE OPTIONS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #Make sure you have enough space. And mount this on a fast disk or a raid0. ##cache_dir ufs /var/squid/cache 1000 16 256 cache_dir diskd /var/squid/cache 500 16 256

#This is extremely useful if your users download big files. You can even increase this depending on usage. maximum_object_size 40960 KB

# LOGFILE OPTIONS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- #This logging format includes the date the address requested the IP address of the requestor and the AD user who made the request. #Human resources need to know what your users browse during the workday. logformat squid %tl %6tr %>a %Ss/%03Hs %<st %rm %ru %un %Sh/%<A %mt #Where to store all of this data. access_log /var/log/squid/access.log squid

# ADMINISTRATIVE PARAMETERS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- cache_mgr [email protected] mail_from squid@ mycompany.net visible_hostname proxy

# DNS OPTIONS # ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- ##You have the option to use the ISP’s DNS here # dns_nameservers 10.0.0.1 192.168.0.254 hosts_file /etc/hosts uri_whitespace allow http_access deny all

#### --- End of the configuration file --- ####

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Run the command squid –z to let squid create the necessary directories.
#squid –z
Add the squid daemon to auto-startup, on a Debian machine the command is:
#update-rc.d squid defaults
Start squid
#/etc/init.d/squid start

Suggestion:
Test squid without authentication first. If this works go to the next step.
To test without authentication, comment all of the parameters in the Authentication section by adding the “#” sign at the beginning of line and restart squid.

Add or remove daemons to autostart
cd /etc/init.d/ update-rc.d winbind defaults update-rc.d -f apache2 remove

Tweaking performance on SQUID

A few settings that can dramaticaly improve the performance on your proxy:

cache_dir ufs /var/spool/squid 1000 50 256
This is the default Squid storage type configuration.
Change the storage type from ufs to aufs if using a Linux or variants.
Change the storage type from ufs to diskd if using BSD or variants.
If you use Windows, is probably for testing purposes, or because you don’t have a machine. Once the testing is done change to Linux or BSD.
The numeric parameters are:
First parameter is the amount of disk space in Mbytes to be used by Squid. The more you use the more physical memory (RAM) you need for indexes in order to be effective.
The rule is that you need
If you want to use the whole drive’s, (partition), space make sure you subtract 20% and use that value. In other words you can only use 80% of the drive.
The second and third parameters are the number of first and second level subdirectories that are created.

cache_mem 64 MB
The more memory you have the better it performs. Local, (cached), objects are much faster to retrieve than external ones.
The more local objects you can store the faster Squid responds.
Squid uses cache for many things other than memory cache, so make sure you have enough memory left when you configure cache_mem.

Memory cache is better for speed than disk, but is lost more easily and you can get bigger cache total spending RAM on indexes.

maximum_object_size 20480 KB
Today’s Internet usage contains has a lot of traffic in the 2MB to 200MB range. This traffic is comprised of multimedia objects, update files, etc.
You need to investigate your traffic and see what is a good number for you.

maximum_object_size_in_memory 64 KB
If you have little memory keep the default 8 KB. It is better to serve more fast pages from memory than a few slow pages that will run faster.

Check if your proxy works and if is logging properly the access.
On your proxy machine run the following command to see realtime access on the proxy: tail -f /var/log/squid/access.log On a client computer open the browser of your choice and change Networking options so that the browser uses the newly installed proxy.
Start to browse and look on the proxy’s console to see your activity logged.

How to Install Squid with Active Directory Authentication on Debian