Squid for Ubuntu, because proxies are too much of a hassle

EDIT : Added Authentication methods for dynamic ips

It has been more than a year since I have been using squid to mitigate all the proxy problems that come due to the proxy authentication.

This is the most effective and hassle free way to set proxy in Linux.

Steps:

Note : Replace 'squid' with 'squid3' if you are not using Ubuntu 16.04

1. Install squid

sudo apt-get install squid

2. Edit the squid configuration file.

sudo vim /etc/squid/squid.conf

(for Ubuntu 15.10 and older)

sudo vim /etc/squid3/squid.conf

3. Delete all the contents of that file and replace them with the configuration given below:


Replace 10.0.2.21 with your own ip address/ other ip addresses that you want to access this proxy from.

Change 202.141.80.22 with your Proxy server address.

Change username:password to your proxy username and password.

4. Save the file ( Esc and ":wq" for vim noobs)

5. Restart the squid server.

sudo service squid restart

(for Ubuntu 15.10 and older)

sudo service squid3 restart

6. Edit your Proxy Settings from the network manager.

7. Open your bash profile.

sudo vim ~/.bashrc

Append the following to the end of the file.

export http_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128
export https_proxy=http://127.0.0.1:3128

The above two things should effectively resolve all proxy problems ( Environment Variables inclusive. )

8. Source the bashrc

source ~/.bashrc

And with that you are done!

You have your own personal proxy server!

Say goodbye to proxy problems.


PS - For those of you on the more geeky side of things, what we have done with the above is create our own proxy server that caches another proxy server with authentication.

The proxy server we have made is effectively a non authentication proxy server for the ips in the allowed_ips acl.

If used a bit cleverly it might also help you get around some other big-'time' restrictions ;) .

Use wisely!





Squid with username password authentication

Follow the steps as above.

Afterwords, do the following:

1. Install apache2-utils

sudo apt-get install apache2-utils

2. Make the password file

Replace squid3 with squid if Ubuntu 16.04

sudo touch /etc/squid3/passwd

sudo chmod 755 /etc/squid3/passwd

3. Create a username/password pair

sudo htpasswd /etc/squid3/passwd user1

4. Change the squid.conf file as follows:
5. Restart squid.

sudo service squid3 restart