RE: GLUG: Caching Server

[Paulo Andre <PAndre@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Do you perhaps know which of the two would be the most secure.


-----Original Message-----
From: Soren Aalto [mailto:soren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 1:37 PM
To: PAndre@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Cc: glug@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: RE: GLUG: Caching Server


> 
> I need some help.
> I have a f@#^%$ idiot that is suggesting a Novell solution (Boarder
> Manager), and he claims that the Novell solution will be faster than Linux
> solution. 
> Another thing, they have changed to say that they are looking at a Proxy
and
> caching solution (So definitely Squid).
> I have never completely set up one from scratch, is it difficult and
> involved...???

Oskar used to hang on this list, I'm sure he'd have an
enlightening opinion...

...but, if he isn't here, then I'll put in my 2c.

Yes -- I think that Border Manager and Novell ICS are supposed
to be faster than squid in the cache bakeoffs.

So what.  You get to choose between a box that's 10 times
faster than your needs or a box thats 50 times faster than
your needs.  Ooooh, you better spend lots of money.

For example -- I have a PII/350 (Dell PE2300) w 256MB RAM
and the proxy is currently running off 2 x 4GB SCSI drives.
Sendmail is also running on that box.  Between them, these
services are driving our 128Kbps access circuit at full speed
and according to vmstat the CPU is 95-100% idle.  And this is
a bonehead config.  I ran this site on a P100 w 32MB of
RAM at one point...although that machine did struggle a bit
and there was a noticable speed increase when we upgraded
to the faster box.

The biggest headaches you'll ever get is that the CPU can
start crunching when the logfiles get big...speaking of
which:

[squid@squid logs]$ ls -l access.log
 -rw-r--r--   1 squid    squid    408772572 Apr  3 08:54 access.log

I just love salespeople that come in and sell you the
performance that you don't really need.

Now, I dunno much about Border manager -- it seems to
have a few stupid ideas (pre-fetching of links on pages
anyone?) and is perhaps friendlier for some things.

However, I have scripts that do things like
read the logfiles in real time, like 

	tail -f access.log | ./perUserVols.pl

which I understand isn't possible on Novell or MS Proxy.
I think that Novell gets speed by having a fancy
not-quite-a-filesystem for storing cached objects.
Nice, but I like to have the reliable unix filesystem
sitting around.

I also have some cool things involving authentication
and redirectors and a whole quota management system
that hangs off these.

I dunno ... some of our guys also want to run Border
manager, but I have this "try the free stuff, and only
when it doesn't work do you need to spend money."  This
spending for a "superior" commercial product for it's
own sake is evil.

--
Soren Aalto <soren@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Internet guy, University of Zululand 
If Bill Gates had a nickel for every time
Windows crashed...oh wait, he does.