Chapter 5. Understanding Log Files and Log Formats

Understanding Squid log files and log formats is pretty easy. In this chapter, we'll present a brief explanation of the log format and how we can customize it to fit our needs. We will cover the related Squid configuration options and look at how a client's privacy can be protected, by ensuring Squid is properly configured.

In this chapter, we will learn to interpret the different log files. We will also learn about configuring Squid to achieve different log messages, depending on requirements or network policies.

In this chapter, we shall learn about the following:

• Cache log

• Access log

• Customizing the access log

• Selective logging or protecting clients' privacy

• Referer log

• User agent log

• Emulating the HTTP server like logs

• Log file rotation

So let's get on with it.