Squid is probably the most commonly used proxy, however it can be a bit difficult to set it up as the configuration file is really huge.
In comparison to tinyproxy it supports authentication which is why I prefer squid over tinyproxy.
Here is how I set it up on Linux Debian 6 (Squeeze) minimal x86, including making it highly anonymous and with authentication:
At first update Debian and install the editor nano:
apt-get update apt-get upgrade apt-get install nano
Then install squid:
apt-get install squid3
When launched, it might display a warning that you can probably ignore.
The name in the repository might change over time, the newest version is squid3. To find out which is the newest you can execute the following command:
apt-cache search squid3
Next we set a username and a password using the tool “htpasswd”, which is part of the apache2 web server:
htpasswd -c /etc/squid3/passwd USERNAME
Enter your desired username and confirm with Enter, then you will be promted to enter a password, confirm it and done!
Should you get the notification “htpasswd: command not found” you have to install the tool first:
apt-get install apache2-utils
This installs the utilities of the apache2 web server, but not the web server itself (which you do not need).
Should you use a user without any rights to run squid you will probably have to set the rights for the passwd file so that squid can access it:
chmod 777 /etc/squid3/passwd
Chmod 644 will probably be enough, just experiment with it.
Now let’s change directory to where the squid configuration file is located and rename the file, because we will add our own which is much shorter:
cd /etc/squid3/ mv squid.conf squid1.conf
Now create a new, empty squid.conf file with the editor nano:
nano /etc/squid3/squid.conf
Add the following configuration, copy it and paste it into PuTTY by doing a right click in the PuTTY window:
http_port 8765 cache deny all hierarchy_stoplist cgi-bin ? access_log none cache_store_log none cache_log /dev/null refresh_pattern ^ftp: 1440 20% 10080 refresh_pattern ^gopher: 1440 0% 1440 refresh_pattern -i (/cgi-bin/|\?) 0 0% 0 refresh_pattern . 0 20% 4320 acl manager proto cache_object acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/32 ::1 acl to_localhost dst 127.0.0.0/8 0.0.0.0/32 ::1 acl SSL_ports port 443 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 CONNECT method CONNECT http_access allow manager localhost http_access deny manager http_access deny !Safe_ports http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports auth_param basic program /usr/lib/squid3/ncsa_auth /etc/squid3/passwd auth_param basic children 5 auth_param basic realm Squid proxy-caching web server auth_param basic credentialsttl 2 hours acl password proxy_auth REQUIRED http_access allow localhost http_access allow password http_access deny all forwarded_for off request_header_access Allow allow all request_header_access Authorization allow all request_header_access WWW-Authenticate allow all request_header_access Proxy-Authorization allow all request_header_access Proxy-Authenticate allow all request_header_access Cache-Control allow all request_header_access Content-Encoding allow all request_header_access Content-Length allow all request_header_access Content-Type allow all request_header_access Date allow all request_header_access Expires allow all request_header_access Host allow all request_header_access If-Modified-Since allow all request_header_access Last-Modified allow all request_header_access Location allow all request_header_access Pragma allow all request_header_access Accept allow all request_header_access Accept-Charset allow all request_header_access Accept-Encoding allow all request_header_access Accept-Language allow all request_header_access Content-Language allow all request_header_access Mime-Version allow all request_header_access Retry-After allow all request_header_access Title allow all request_header_access Connection allow all request_header_access Proxy-Connection allow all request_header_access User-Agent allow all request_header_access Cookie allow all request_header_access All deny all
You can save the configuration file by holding CTRL+X , confirm with “y” and hit Enter to confirm the changes.
You can change settings according to your needs, especially the port (first line). I would recommend to choose none of the standard ports (3128, 8080, 8800, 8000, 8888,..) as some scripts try to access these ports to determine if you are using a proxy.
The bottom part below “forwarded_for off” is what makes the proxy anonymous.
Now you are almost ready to use it, restart squid:
/etc/init.d/squid3 restart
Done!
Find more information on the official website: http://www.squid-cache.org/
As usual, do not hesitate to post questions and suggestions in the comments.
Additional stuff:
If you would like to only allow access to a few select websites, use the following lines:
acl xacl dstdomain "/etc/squid3/xacl" http_access allow password xacl http_access deny all
Then add websites to the file “xacl” (or whatever you named it) in the following format:
.websiteexample1.TLD .websiteexample2.TLD ...