On 09/01/2013 04:13 PM, Golden Shadow wrote:
> Unfortunately, I've concluded that if someone was to install squid in
> a real environment, there would be no specific guide that he can
> follow to avoid all the problems that are waiting for him on the
> way.
[...]
> I think I will give up soon and advise the party I installed squid
> for to go for another, commercial, cache proxy.
Hello Firas,
Thanks a lot for sharing your impressions! It is important for the
Squid Project to hear such detailed and honest feedback, even if there
is relatively little we can do to immediately address most of your concerns.
There is indeed no "guide to avoid all problems", and I doubt such a
document will ever exist given (a) the amount of work it would take to
write such a comprehensive manual; (b) the changing nature of Squid
features and deployment environments; and (c) different priorities of
most folks capable of writing it.
Perhaps we could at least warn new users that getting Squid to work
well, especially in high-performance environments, often requires
serious system administration skills and Squid-specific expertise. It
would be difficult to write such a warning without scaring too many
potential users that do not really need the above and without needlessly
disparaging Squid compared to other far-from-perfect alternatives, but
we can try. If you would like to draft a paragraph or two, please do.
As for your conclusion, I agree that purchasing a proxy is a viable
alternative that should always be considered. We see many purchased
proxies being replaced by Squids, but I am sure there are many Squids
being replaced as well because every deployment environment is different.
Going forward, my only advice to you is to minimize the chance of
repeating the same mistake twice: Do not expect another proxy to do
everything your customer wants out of the box or to have stellar support
just because they will be paying [more] for it. If that happens, great.
If not, at least they are not going to blame you for raising their
expectations too high. If thoroughly testing another proxy before paying
for it is an option, use it.
If you decide to come back to Squid at some point, the community will be
happy to continue helping you, even though that help is not going to be
always prompt, comprehensive, or even useful. Many of us do our best to
help, but getting the most out of your Squid often requires serious work
and expertise that cannot always be replaced by a mailing list, a wiki,
and two books, unfortunately.
Good luck,
Alex.
