====== Installing Squid with VuFind® in 10 minutes ======

:!: // These instructions were written in reference to an installation of VuFind® 1.0RC1; some details may be out of date. //

Due to Syndetics network/service issues, Western Michigan University implemented a reverse proxy cache for particular third party vendors.  [[http://www.squid-cache.org/|Squid]] is an open source reverse proxy cache. It can cache and store third party content locally, thus improving response times.
 
In our case, we use a separate server to increase performance. Squid can either be installed on the VuFind® server or separately.  However, due to its system load, it is recommended that Squid be installed on a secondary machine (we used an Intel Xeon 3.0ghz 800mhz bus, 2 Gig DDR2, 1 terabyte non-RAID disk). In these instructions, the base operating system is RedHat 5.2/CentOS [[http://www.centos.org/]].

===== Install the Operating System =====
    * Large Partitions
    * Swap should be 2x or more of RAM
===== Update System =====
    *[root@Squidbox] yum update -y
===== Reboot into new Kernel =====
    *[root@Squidbox] reboot
===== Open Squid Port 3128 =====
    *[root@Squidbox] setup
    *Follow GUI
===== Install Squid ===== 
    *[root@Squidbox] yum install squid -y
===== Configure Squid =====
    *replace this with the /etc/squid/squid.conf
Note 1: 165.254.62.247 is the IP of syndetics.com
Note 2: 3128 is the default port

<code>
#Squid Conf

http_port 3128 defaultsite=syndetics.com

cache_peer   165.254.62.247 parent 80 0 no-query originserver

acl our_sites dstdomain syndetics.com

http_access allow our_sites

#disk swap
cache_swap_high 95

cache_swap_low 90

#ram ram ram

cache_mem 32 MB


#End Squid Conf
</code>

===== Add Squid as a Service =====
[root@Squidbox]/sbin/chkconfig --add squid
===== Start Squid =====
[root@Squidbox]/sbin/service squid start

===== Configure VuFind® =====
Adjust VuFind® to access your Squid box's IP address instead of the normal URLs. Depending on the service you are using, you may be able to adjust [[configuration:files:config.ini]]; otherwise, you will have to edit code. 

For our instance, we had to go through and hand edit code retrieving book covers, excerpts and reviews and replace http://syndetics.com with yoursquidboxip.