  Transparent Proxy with Linux and Squid mini-HOWTO
  Daniel Kiracofe
  v1.15, August 2002

  This document provides information on how to setup a transparent
  caching HTTP proxy server using only Linux and squid.
  ______________________________________________________________________

  Table of Contents


  1. Introduction

     1.1 Comments
     1.2 Copyrights and Trademarks
     1.3 #include <disclaimer.h>

  2. Overview of Transparent Proxying

     2.1 Motivation
     2.2 Scope of this document
     2.3 HTTPS
     2.4 Proxy Authentication

  3. Configuring the Kernel

  4. Setting up squid

  5. Setting up iptables (Netfilter)

  6. Transparent Proxy to a Remote Box

     6.1 First method (simpler, but does not work for some esoteric cases)
     6.2 Second method (more complicated, but more general)
     6.3 Method One: What if iptables-box is on a dynamic IP?

  7. Transparent Proxy With Bridging

  8. Put it all together

  9. Troubleshooting

  10. Further Resources



  ______________________________________________________________________

  1.  Introduction

  1.1.  Comments

  Comments and general feedback on this mini HOWTO are welcome and can
  be directed to its author, Daniel Kiracofe, at drk@unxsoft.com.

  1.2.  Copyrights and Trademarks

  Copyright 2000-2002 by Daniel Kiracofe

  This manual may be reproduced in whole or in part, without fee,
  subject to the following restrictions:


  ·  The copyright notice above and this permission notice must be
     preserved complete on all complete or partial copies

  ·  Translation to another language is permitted, provided that the
     author is notified prior to the translation.

  ·  Any derived work must be approved by the author in writing before
     distribution.

  ·  If you distribute this work in part, instructions for obtaining the
     complete version of this manual must be included, and a means for
     obtaining a complete version provided.

  ·  Small portions may be reproduced as illustrations for reviews or
     quotes in other works without this permission notice if proper
     citation is given.

  Exceptions to these rules may be granted for academic purposes: Write
  to the author and ask. These restrictions are here to protect us as
  authors, not to restrict you as learners and educators. Any source
  code (aside from the SGML this document was written in) in this
  document is placed under the GNU General Public License, available via
  anonymous FTP from the GNU archive.

  1.3.  #include <disclaimer.h>

  No warranty, expressed or implied, etc, etc, etc...

  2.  Overview of Transparent Proxying

  2.1.  Motivation

  In ``ordinary'' proxying, the client specifies the hostname and port
  number of a proxy in his web browsing software. The browser then makes
  requests to the proxy, and the proxy forwards them to the origin
  servers. This is all fine and good, but sometimes one of several
  situations arise. Either


  ·  You want to force clients on your network to use the proxy, whether
     they want to or not.

  ·  You want clients to use a proxy, but don't want them to know
     they're being proxied.

  ·  You want clients to be proxied, but don't want to go to all the
     work of updating the settings in hundreds or thousands of web
     browsers.

  This is where transparent proxying comes in. A web request can be
  intercepted by the proxy, transparently. That is, as far as the client
  software knows, it is talking to the origin server itself, when it is
  really talking to the proxy server.  (Note that the transparency only
  applies to the client; the server knows that a proxy is involved, and
  will see the IP address of the proxy, not the IP address of the user.
  Although, squid may pass an X-Forwarded-For header, so that the server
  can determine the original user's IP address if it groks that header).

  Cisco routers support transparent proxying. So do many switches. But,
  (surprisingly enough) Linux can act as a router, and can perform
  transparent proxying by redirecting TCP connections to local ports.
  However, we also need to make our web proxy aware of the affect of the
  redirection, so that it can make connections to the proper origin
  servers. There are two general ways this works:

  The first is when your web proxy is not transparent proxy aware. You
  can use a nifty little daemon called transproxy that sits in front of
  your web proxy and takes care of all the messy details for you.
  transproxy was written by John Saunders, and is available from
  ftp://ftp.nlc.net.au/pub/linux/www/ or your local metalab mirror.
  transproxy will not be discussed further in this document.

  A cleaner solution is to get a web proxy that is aware of transparent
  proxying itself. The one we are going to focus on here is squid. Squid
  is an Open Source caching proxy server for Unix systems. It is
  available from www.squid-cache.org

  Alternatively, instead of redirecting the connections to local ports,
  we could redirect the connections to remote ports.  This is discussed
  in the ``Transparent Proxy to a Remote Box'' section.  Readers
  interested in this approach should skip down to that section.  Readers
  interested on doing everything on one box can safely ignore that
  section.


  2.2.  Scope of this document

  This document will focus on squid version 2.4 and Linux kernel version
  2.4, the most current stable releases as of this writing (August
  2002). It should also work with most of the later 2.3 kernels. If you
  need information about  earlier releases of squid or Linux, you can
  find some earlier documents at http://users.gurulink.com/transproxy/.
  Note that this site has moved from it's previous location.

  If you are using a development kernel or a development version of
  squid, you are on your own.  This document may help you, but YMMV.

  Note that this document focuses only on HTTP proxing.  I get many
  emails asking about transparent FTP proxying.  Squid can't do it.
  Now, allegedly a program called Frox can. I have not tried this
  myself, so I cannot say how well it works.  You can find it at
  http://www.hollo32.fsnet.co.uk/frox/.

  I only focus on squid here, but Apache can also function as a caching
  proxy server.  (If you are not sure which to use, I recommend squid,
  since it was built from the ground up to be a caching proxy server,
  Apache's caching proxy features are more of afterthought additions to
  an already existing system.)  If you want use Apache instead of squid:
  follow all the instructions in this document that pertain to the
  kernel and iptables rules.  Ignore the squid specific sections, and
  instead look at http://lupo.campus.uniroma2.it/progetti/mod_tproxy/
  for source code and instructions for a transparent proxy module for
  Apache (thanks to Cristiano Paris (c.paris@libero.it) for contributing
  this).

  2.3.  HTTPS

  Finally, as far as transparently proxing HTTPS (e.g. secure web pages
  using SSL, TSL, etc.), you can't do it.  Don't even ask.  For the
  explanation, do a search for 'man-in-the-middle attack'.  Note that
  you probably don't really need to transparently proxy HTTPS anyway,
  since squid can not cache secure pages.

  2.4.  Proxy Authentication

  You cannot use Proxy Authentication transparently.  See the Squid FAQ
  for (slightly) more details.

  3.  Configuring the Kernel

  First, we need to make sure all the proper options are set in your
  kernel.  If you are using a stock kernel from your distribution,
  transparent proxying may or may not be enabled.  If you are unsure,
  the best way to tell is to simply skip this section, and if the
  commands in the next section give you weird errors, it's probably
  because the kernel wasn't configured properly.

  If your kernel is not configured for transparent proxying, you will
  need to recompile. Recompiling a kernel is a complex process (at least
  at first), and it is beyond the scope of this document. If you need
  help compiling a kernel, please see The Kernel HOWTO

  The options you need to set in your configuration are as follows
  (Note: if you prefer modules, some (but not all) of these can be built
  as modules. Luckily, everything that is not modularizable is probably
  got in your kernel anyway.)


  ·  Under General Setup

  ·  Networking support

  ·  Sysctl support

  ·  Under Networking Options

  ·  Network packet filtering

  ·  TCP/IP networking

  ·  Under Networking Options -> IP: Netfilter Configuration

  ·  Connection tracking

  ·  IP tables support

  ·  Full NAT

  ·  REDIRECT target support

  ·  Under File Systems

  ·  /proc filesystem support

     You must say NO to ``Fast switching'' under Networking Options.

  Once you have your new kernel up and running, you may need to enable
  IP forwarding. IP forwarding allows your computer to act as a router.
  Since this is not what the average user wants to do, it is off by
  default and must be explicitly enabled at run-time. However, your
  distribution might do this for you already. To check, do ``cat
  /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward''. If you see ``1'' you're good.
  Otherwise, do ``echo '1' > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward''.  You will
  then want to add that command to your appropriate bootup scripts
  (depending on your distribution, these may live in /etc/rc.d,
  /etc/init.d, or maybe somewhere else entirely).

  4.  Setting up squid

  Now, we need to get squid up and running. Download the latest source
  tarball from www.squid-cache.org.  Make sure you get a STABLE version,
  not a DEVEL version.  The latest as of this writing was
  squid-2.4.STABLE4.tar.gz.  Note that AFAIK, you must have squid-2.4
  for linux kernel 2.4.  The reason is that the mechanism by which the
  process determines the original destination address has changed from
  linux 2.2, and only squid-2.4 has this new code in it. (For those of
  you who are interested, previously the getsockname() call was hacked
  to provide the original destination address, but now the call is
  getsockopt() with a level of SOL_IP and an option of SO_ORIGINAL_DST).


  Now, untar and gunzip the archive (use ``tar -xzf <filename>'').  Run
  the autoconfiguration script and tell it to include netfilter code
  (``./configure --enable-linux-netfilter''), compile (``make'') and
  then install (``make install'').

  Now, we need to edit the default squid.conf file (installed to
  /usr/local/squid/etc/squid.conf, unless you changed the defaults). The
  squid.conf file is heavily commented. In fact, some of the best
  documentation available for squid is in the squid.conf file. After you
  get it all up and running, you should go back and reread the whole
  thing. But for now, let's just get the minimum required.  Find the
  following directives, uncomment them, and change them to the
  appropriate values:


  ·  httpd_accel_host virtual

  ·  httpd_accel_port 80

  ·  httpd_accel_with_proxy on

  ·  httpd_accel_uses_host_header on

  Next, look at the cache_effective_user and cache_effective_group
  directives.  Unless the default nobody/nogroup has been created on
  your system (AFAIK, it is not created out of the box on many popular
  distributions, including RH7.1), you'll either need to create those,
  or create another username/group for squid to run under.  I strongly
  recommend that you create a username/group of squid/squid and run
  under that, but you could use any existing user/group if you want.

  Finally, look at the http_access directive. The default is usually
  ``http_access deny all''. This will prevent anyone from accessing
  squid. For now, you can change this to ``http_access allow all'', but
  once it is working, you will probably want to read the directions on
  ACLs (Access Control Lists), and setup the cache such that only people
  on your local network (or whatever) can access the cache. This may
  seem silly, but you should put some kind of restrictions on access to
  your cache. People behind filtering firewalls (such as porn filters,
  or filters in nations where speech is not very free) often ``hijack''
  onto wide open proxies and eat up your bandwidth.

  Initialize the cache directories with ``squid -z'' (if this is a not a
  new installation of squid, you should skip this step).

  Now, run squid using the RunCache script in the /usr/local/squid/bin/
  directory.  If it works, you should be able to set your web browser's
  proxy settings to the IP of the box and port 3128 (unless you changed
  the default port number) and access squid as a normal proxy.

  For additional help configuring squid, see the squid FAQ at www.squid-
  cache.org

  5.  Setting up iptables (Netfilter)

  iptables is a new thing for Linux kernel 2.4 that replaces ipchains.
  If your distribution came with a 2.4 kernel, it probably has iptables
  already installed.  If not, you'll have to download it (and possibly
  compile it).  The homepage is netfilter.samba.org.  You make be able
  to find binary RPMs elsewhere, I haven't looked.  For the curious,
  there is plenty of documentation on the netfilter site.

  To set up the rules, you will need to know two things, the interface
  that the to-be-proxied requests are coming in on (I'll use eth0 as an
  example) and the port squid is running on (I'll use the default of
  3128 as an example).
  Now, the magic words for transparent proxying:


  ·  iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT
     --to-port 3128

  You will want to add the above commands to your appropriate bootup
  script under /etc/rc.d/.  Readers upgrading from 2.2 kernels should
  note that this is the only command needed.  2.2 kernels required two
  extra commands in order to prevent forwarding loops.  The
  infastructure of netfilter is much nicer, and only this command is
  needed.

  6.  Transparent Proxy to a Remote Box

  Now, the question naturally arises, if we can do all this nifty stuff
  redirecting HTTP connections to local ports, could we do the same
  thing but to a  remote box (e.g., the machine with squid running is
  not the same machine as iptables is running on).  The answer is yes,
  but it takes a little different magic words. If you only want to
  redirect to the local box (the normal case), skip this section.

  For the purposes of example commands, let's assume we have two boxes
  called squid-box and iptables-box, and that they are on the network
  local-network.  In the commands below, replace these strings with the
  actual IP addresses or name of your machines and network.

  I will present two different approaches here.

  6.1.  First method (simpler, but does not work for some esoteric
  cases)


  First, we need to machine that squid will be running on, squid-box.
  You do not need iptables or any special kernel options on this
  machine, just squid.  You *will*, however, need the 'http_accel'
  options as described above.  (Previous version of this HOWTO suggested
  that you did not need those options.  That was a mistake. Sorry to
  have confused people...)

  Now, the machine that iptables will be running on, iptables-box You
  will need to configure the kernel as described in section 3 above,
  except that you don't need the REDIRECT target support).  Now, for the
  iptables commands. You need three:


  ·  iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -i eth0 -s ! squid-box -p tcp --dport
     80 -j DNAT --to squid-box:3128

  ·  iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -s local-network -d squid-
     box -j SNAT --to iptables-box

  ·  iptables -A FORWARD -s local-network -d squid-box -i eth0 -o eth0
     -p tcp --dport 3128 -j ACCEPT

  The first one sends the packets to squid-box from iptables-box.  The
  second makes sure that the reply gets sent back through iptables-box,
  instead of directly to the client (this is very important!).  The last
  one makes sure the iptables-box will forward the appropriate packets
  to squid-box. It may not be needed. YMMV.  Note that we specified '-i
  eth0' and then '-o eth0', which stands for input interface eth0 and
  output interface eth0.  If your packets are entering and leaving on
  different interfaces, you will need to adjust the commands
  accordingly.


  Add these commands to your appropriate startup scripts under
  /etc/rc.d/

  (Thanks to Giles Coochey for help writing this section).

  6.2.  Second method (more complicated, but more general)

  Our first shot at this works good, but there is a minor drawback in
  that HTTP/1.0 connections without the Host header do not get handled
  properly.  Connections that are fully or partially HTTP/1.1 compliant
  work fine.  As most modern web browsers send the Host header, this is
  not a problem for most people.  However, some small programs or
  embedded devices may send only very simple HTTP/1.0 requests.  If you
  want to support these, we'll need to do a little more work.  Namely,
  on iptables-box we'll need the following options enabled in the kernel
  in addition to what was specified above:


  ·  IP: advanced router

  ·  IP: policy routing

  ·  IP: use netfilter MARK value as routing key

  ·  IP: Netfilter Configuration ->  Packet mangling

  ·  IP: Netfilter Configuration ->  MARK target support

  You'll also need the iproute2 tools.  Your distribution probably
  already has them installed, but if not, look at
  ftp://ftp.inr.ac.ru/ip-routing/

  You'll want to use the following set of commands on iptables-box:

  ·  iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -j ACCEPT -p tcp --dport 80 -s
     squid-box

  ·  iptables -t mangle -A PREROUTING -j MARK --set-mark 3 -p tcp
     --dport 80

  ·  ip rule add fwmark 3 table 2

  ·  ip route add default via squid-box dev eth1 table 2

     Note that the choice of firewall mark (3) and routing table (2) was
     fairly arbitrary.  If you are already using policy routing or
     firewall marking for some other purpose, make sure you choose
     unique numbers here. Otherwise, don't worry about it.


  Next, squid-box.  Use this command, which should look remarkably
  similar to a command we've seen previously.

  ·  iptables -A PREROUTING -t nat -i eth0 -p tcp --dport 80 -j REDIRECT
     --to-port 3128

     As before, add all of these commands to the appropriate startup
     scripts.

  Here is a brief explanation of how this works: in method one, we used
  Network Address Translation to get the packets to the other box.  The
  result of this is that the packet gets altered.  This alteration is
  what causes some kinds of clients mentioned above to fail. In method
  two, we use a magic thing called policy routing.  The first thing we
  do is to select the packets we want.  Thus, all packets on port 80,
  except those coming from squid-box itself, are MARKed.  Then, when the
  kernel goes to make a routing decision, the MARKed packets aren't
  routing using the normal routing table that you access with the
  ``route'' command but with a special table.  This special table has
  only one entry, a default gateway to squid-box.  Thus, the packet is
  sent merrily on it's way without every having been altered.  So, even
  HTTP/1.0 connections can be handled perfectly.  (Thanks to Michal
  Svoboda for suggesting and helping to write this section)



  6.3.  Method One: What if iptables-box is on a dynamic IP?

  If the iptables-box is on a dynamic IP address (e.g. a dialup PPP
  connection, or a DHCP assigned IP address from a cable modem, etc.),
  then you will want to make a slight change to the above commands.
  Replace the second command with this one:


  ·  iptables -t nat -A POSTROUTING -o eth0 -s local-network -d squid-
     box -j MASQUERADE

  This change avoids having to specify the IP address of iptables-box in
  the command.  Since it will change often, you'd have to change your
  commands to reflect it.  This will save you a lot of hassle.

  7.  Transparent Proxy With Bridging

  Warning, this is really esoteric stuff.  If you need it, you'll know.
  If not, skip this section.  Thanks to Lewis Shobbrook
  (lshobbrook@fasttrack.net.au) for contributing to this section.

  If you are trying to setup a transparent proxy on a Linux machine that
  has been configured as a bridge, you will need to add one additional
  iptables command to what we had in section 5.  Specifically, you need
  to explicitly allow connections to the machine on port 3128 (or any
  other port squid is listening on), otherwise the machine will just
  forward them over to the other interface like a good little bridge.
  Here's the magic words:

  ·  iptables -A INPUT -i interface -p tcp -d your_bridge_ip -s local-
     network --dport 3128 -m state --state NEW,ESTABLISHED -j ACCEPT

     Replacing interface with the interface that corresponds to
     your_bridge_ip (typically eth0 or eth1).  First time bridge users
     should also note that you'll probably want to repeat the same
     command with ``3128'' replaced by ``telnet'' if you want to
     administer your bridge remotely.

  8.  Put it all together

  If everything has gone well so far, go to another machine, change it's
  gateway to the IP of the box with iptables running on it, and surf
  away. To make sure that requests are really being forwarded through
  your proxy instead of straight to the origin server, check the log
  file /usr/local/squid/logs/access.log

  9.  Troubleshooting

  There is one problem that occurs often enough to mention here.  If you
  get the following error:

       /lib/modules/2.4.2-2/kernel/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_tables.o init_mod­
       ules: Device or resource busy Hints: insmod errors can be caused by
       incorrect module parameters; including invalid IO or IRQ parameters.


  perhaps iptables or your kernel needs to be upgraded...



  then you are probably running Red Hat 7.x.  The folks at Red Hat, in
  all their wisdom, decided to load the ipchains module by default on
  startup.  I guess this was for backwards compatibility for those who
  haven't learned iptables yet.  However, the problem is that ipchains
  and iptables are mutually incompatible.  Since ipchains has been
  secretly loaded by RH, you cannot use iptables commands.  To see if
  this is your problem, do the command ``lsmod'' and look for the module
  named ``ipchains''.  If you see it, that is your problem.  The quick
  fix is to execute the command ``rmmod ipchains'' before you issue any
  iptables commands.  To permanently remove these commands from your
  startup scripts, the following command should work:  ``/sbin/chkconfig
  --level 2345 ipchains off''.  (Thanks to Rasmus Glud for pointing this
  command out to me).


  10.  Further Resources

  Should you still need assistance, you may wish to check the squid FAQ
  or the squid mailing list at www.squid-cache.org. You may also e-mail
  me at drk@unxsoft.com, and I'll try to answer your questions if time
  permits (sometimes it does, but sometimes it doesn't).  Please,
  please, please, send the output of ``iptables -t nat -L'' and relavent
  portions of any configuration files in your e-mail, or else I will
  probably not be able to help you out much.  And please make sure
  you've read the whole HOWTO before asking a question.  Regrettably,
  even though this document has been translated to many different
  languages, I can only answer questions asked in English.



