Best linux distro for squid and DHCP

TNGL

TNGL

TNGL

Soldato
Joined
2 Jul 2010
Posts
3,098
Hey,
Basically, I'm not very familiar with Linux, although I'm looking for an extremely light weight Linux distro which will run Squid and DHCP. Any recommendations? I'm not too bothered about not having a GUI, because from what I can gather, Squid only uses CLI for the initial setup and configuration, but after that you just use the web interface.
 
Depends how radical you're feeling. People will offer Debian/CentOS but I am assuming that you're running this at home rather than a work environment? If so, live life on the edge and get Archlinux installed.
 
Yes, all three distros I suggested will have squid in the repos. Get your google-fu on and there are an endless list of tutorials on how to configure them.
 
Use pfsense, squid comes as a package within pfsense and i believe it has a very nice easy to use web GUI custom made for pfsense. Check it out. squid via pfsense is one of the most commonly used functions for pfsense.

pfsense runs on a custom built freebsd by the way.
 
He wants Squid and DHCP, I don't see how adding pfsense will make it simpler.

I do really like pfsense though, I'm currently running a little ALIX 2D5 box with it on.
Performance is fine for most applications (~50mbit throughput) and fun for tinkering. Also useful for testing network connectivity with as it's small enough to chuck in a bag wherever you go!
 
Of course it will pfsense is super easy even windows users could install it and set up squid within an hour. Compare that to installing centos with manual install of squid lol.

Put it this way i set up pfsense and snort IDS very very easily, i am still trying to get snort and base working on my freebsd box and that is with guides with screenshots. to be fair i have not had the time or willingness to do it, but with pfsense it is so easy and you get nice graphs and things.

at the moment i use pfsense with packages

snort
unbound
ntop
vnstat
pfblocker

i had havp installed as well, but it was proving too much for the box, so i disabled it, i never use non ssh tunnel internet anyway, so kind of pointless.


Maybe you didn't understand what i meant. Squid comes as a package for pfsense.

found a nice guide with screenshots :D

http://skear.hubpages.com/hub/How-to-setup-a-transparent-proxy-using-pfSense
 
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Hey, thanks for the added suggestions. I downloaded Debian, tried to install it on VMWare... and it keeps bloody failing to boot from the mounted ISO! Any suggestions? I mean, it's as though it's skipping the DVD drive... I've tried changing the boot order to no avail.
 
If it's the same as ESX then make sure the VM is set to have the DVD ISO connected when the VM is powered on and tell the VM to boot into it's "bios" ... there change the boot order to boot from DVD first ...

Personally I'd have gone for CentOS but that just due to running a squid proxy on at that at work ... :)
 
Thanks for the suggestions, I see you're very eager for me to use pfesense, Groen :p But, I ended up installing Ubuntu Server (didn't have the problem of the iso not being read), and currently have it running on 128mb of RAM so I'm fairly happy about that.

When I first installed it, I had a bit of a WTF moment when setting a static IP... I opened the configuration file up using 'vi' and I couldn't edit it, I just ended up bashing my keyboard in the hope of it doing something. Then I looked this up, and I realised I have to use the 'i' key to be in insert mode :p

If I get stuck in the strange world of Linux, I'll let you know. I'm currently installing webmin to make my life easier though.
 
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