How to Install Squid Proxy Server on CentOS/RHEL 7/6 & Fedora 30/29/28

Squid is the most popular Proxy server for Linux systems. The squid proxy server is also useful for the web packet filtering. Most of the web hosting providers use the Squid proxy for caching the repetitive data to increase website speed.

This article will help you to Install and Configure SQUID Proxy Server on CentOS, Redhat and Fedora Linux systems.

Step 1 – Install Squid

Squid packages are available in default yum repositories. Execute below command on your server to install SQUID proxy server.

sudo yum install squid       # On CentOS/RedHat Systems 
sudo dnf install squid       # On Fedora Systems 

Step 2 – Change Squid Port (optional)

Squid default runs on port 3128. If you want to start squid on different port, Edit squid configuration file and change http_port value. For example we are changing squid to run on port 8080.

/etc/squid/squid.conf

http_port 8080

After making changing let’s restart Squid service to reload the configuration changes

service squid restart

Step 3 – Block Specific Website with Squid

Let’s start with the additional configuration like blocking any website using squid proxy server. Add below rules to block specific website before any allow all rules. Below example will block yahoo.com and www.rediff.com.

acl blocksite1 dstdomain yahoo.com
acl blocksite2 dstdomain www.rediff.com
http_access deny blocksite1
http_access deny blocksite2

If you have a long list of domain names, Create a file /etc/squid/blockwebsites.lst and put domain names one per line and add below rule in squid configuration file.

acl blocksitelist dstdomain "/etc/squid/blockwebsites.lst"
http_access deny blocksitelist

blockwebsites.lst file content example:

# cat /etc/squid/blockwebsites.lst

yahoo.com
www.rediff.com

Step 4 – Block Specific Keyword with Squid

Add below rules to block specific website before any allow all rules. Below example will block all pages having keyword yahoo or Gmail.

acl blockkeyword1 url_regex yahoo
acl blockkeyword2 url_regex gmail
http_access deny blockkeyword1
http_access deny blockkeyword2

If you have a long list of keywords, Create a file /etc/squid/blockkeywords.lst and put keywords one per line and add below rule in the squid configuration file.

acl blockkeywordlist url_regex "/etc/squid/blockkeywords.lst"
http_access deny blockkeywordlist

blockkeywords.lst file content example:

# cat /etc/squid/blockkeywords.lst

yahoo
gmail
facebook

Congratulation’s you have successfully install and configured Squid proxy server. Read next article to Configure Squid for Mac Address Based Filtering.