How to: Linux / UNIX setup Squid Proxy authentication

Q. I'm using Squid Cache Version 2.6.STABLE. It is configured perfectly and I'd like to know how do I allow squid to only authenticated users?

A. Squid can authenticate users if squid is configured to use proxy_auth ACLs. Browsers send the user's authentication credentials in the Authorization request header. If Squid gets a request and the http_access rule list gets to a proxy_auth ACL, Squid looks for the Authorization header. If the header is present, Squid decodes it and extracts a username and password.

If the header is missing, Squid returns an HTTP reply with status 407 (Proxy Authentication Required). The user agent (browser) receives the 407 reply and then prompts the user to enter a name and password. The name and password are encoded, and sent in the Authorization header for subsequent requests to the proxy.

Your Squid software comes with a few authentication helper programs. These include (click link below to open Squid cache authentication configuration tutorial):

• Squid NTLM authentication configuration using ntlm_auth
• Configure squid for LDAP authentication using squid_ldap_auth helper
• Howto: Squid proxy authentication using ncsa_auth helper

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