Chapter 8. Building a Hierarchy of Squid Caches

In the previous chapters, we learned that the Squid proxy server can talk to other proxy servers over the network to share information about cached content, to fetch content from remote servers on behalf of other proxy servers, or to use other proxy servers to fetch content from remote servers. In this chapter, we will explore cache hierarchies in detail. We'll also learn to configure Squid to act as a parent or a sibling proxy server in a hierarchy, and use other proxy servers as parent or sibling proxy servers.

In this chapter, we will learn about the following:

• Cache hierarchies

• Reasons to use hierarchical caching

• Problems with hierarchical caching

• Related Squid configuration

• Controlling communication with peers

• Peer communication protocols

So let's get started.