Re: Squid QUICKSTART (Was: protecting local resources )

On Fri, 3 Jan 1997, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:

> On Thursday 2 January 97, at 2 h 37, the keyboard of Duane Wessels
> <wessels@nlanr.net> wrote:
> > At the various conferences and
> > workshops I have heard numerous people say that its too difficult to
> > properly configure a web cache, that it needs to be an order of
> > magnitude more simple. But at the same time I see users constantly
> > asking for additional configuration options.

Isn't that always the way? :-)

> Squid is, IMHO, quite simple to configure.

Yes. And no.

For the most part, it doesn't take a genius to work out how to change some
option, how to get Squid to exhibit some behaviour, or how to fix some
problem. Alas, however, there are times when "wierd things happen", and
unless you've been working in the bowels of the application for a while,
you won't have a clue what the heck is going on, no matter how smart or
experienced you may be.

I know this may sound bleeding obvious, but how about a "Squid
Administrator's Reference Guide" (HTML, PS, ..)? It doesn't have to be a
drop-dead beginner's guide or anything, but a *detailed* reference that
lists *everything* (no matter how small or arcane), include side-affects
(particularly important with ACLs!).

A FAQ goes a long way towards helping, as does a "Getting Started" or
"QuickStart" guide, but when an administrator has a running Squid and
needs to make some new change in order to account for changing
circumstances, they need to look up in a *reference*, *all* the *detail*
related to that topic.

I think it was mentioned on squid-users a few weeks ago - now that Squid
1.1 is released, could we all start serious work on serious documentation?

I suppose anything thing that could help balance the functionality with
the "ease of use" that people demand is a GUI interface to squid.conf (for
those that want it, I guess); an out-growth of cachemgr.cgi, perhaps?

Just thinking aloud...

dave

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