[squid-users] Squid.conf Includes

[Alex Rousskov]

On 08/10/2018 09:51 AM, Cheadle, Edward wrote:

> If I do split the rules up, does it increase the speed of processing the
> rules?

If by "processing" you mean applying configured rules to traffic at
runtime, then the answer is "no". At runtime, Squid uses compiled rules,
and compiled rule application/checking speed does not depend on where
the rule were loaded/compiled from.


> I was told it does, but in looking at information on the squid
> site, in how rules are processed, I can’t find anything that would lead
> me to believe that splitting out the rules into separate files would
> speed anything up.

If the deployment environment loads/reads few large files slower than it
loads/reads many small files, then it is possible that using many small
configuration files will speed up Squid configuration.

Also, loading lots of ACL values/parameters from a file might be faster
than loading lots of ACL values/parameters embedded in squid.conf
(because it might be easier for Squid to find where each value
starts/ends in an external parameter file), but I have not tested that
theory, and, again, this theory only applies to Squid (re)configuration
delay, not runtime processing/performance.


> The reason this is an issue, is because on AWS we have a load balancer
> and we spin up an instance and if it takes too long it tends to stop the
> instance.

What is the approximate total size of your Squid configuration,
including all the external files that Squid has to load/parse while
configuring itself? What is the current startup delay with a
trivial/small rule set? What is the additional startup delay from
parsing all those rules?

Alex.