[squid-users] Squid proxying okay but not really cacheing?

Hi.

I've just set up a squid system (2.5stable3) under Linux, and I've changed
only the access control setting in the squid.conf file, to allow me access.
It's working fine, and passing requests and pages through nicely.

However, I can't really see that it's doing much cacheing, when I would
expect it to. So far I'm the only user, testing the system, and I'm using a
website mapping application which walks through every page on a website,
following all the local links, as a way of generating some traffic through
squid.

I'm visiting a couple of sites which have nearly all static content, so it
should be cacheable okay.

The first time I run the app, and I watch squid's access.log output, I see
lots of TCP_MISS entries, with the access going DIRECT to fetch the webpage
from the server.

But it looks pretty much the same the second time I do the same thing - I get
very few TCP_HIT, TCP_IMS_HIT or TCP_MEM_HIT entries, and my inbound traffic
to the squid server is pretty much as high as it was the first time round.

I have two questions, which I can't find in the FAQ:

1. Can I get any statistics out of squid to tell me what size cache it's
using, how full it is, and how quickly it's churning the entries?

2. Is there anything else I should be changing in the squid.conf file to get
good cacheing as well as proxying?
 

Thanks,
 

Antony.

-- 
Programming is a Dark Art, and it will always be. The programmer is
fighting against the two most destructive forces in the universe:
entropy and human stupidity. They're not things you can always
overcome with a "methodology" or on a schedule.
 - Damian Conway, Perl God