which is the best way to delete squid cache ?

['chris']

hi

which is the best way to delete squid cache ?
how often should I do that ?
I have Squid 2.5.STABLE4 installed on linux SUSE 8.2
and I'm using it for about 250 clients.
for Squid Cache I have configured 20GB in squid.conf :

cache_dir ufs /var/cache/squid 20000 16 256

kind regards
chris

[Stuart Browne · Accepted solution]

To remove the Squid cache (which I don't advise), you stop squid, 'rm -fr /var/cache/squid/*', then start squid again (which will re-make the structure).

I *DO NOT* advise doing this. The whole point of Squid is to have those cached files. The ageing settings is what you care about, as this tells squid whether it should keep something in the cache or not (see the 'refresh_pattern' settings in squid.conf).

[Steven E. Protter]

I'm wondering why you are wanting to delete the squid cache in the first place. If the target website has updated its content, the cache should be updated.

If you could provide reasoning for wanting to delete it, there might be possible suggestions on improving the situation.

Stuart's already provided you the info on how to do it.

I would shut down the squid server prior to going against his advice. At least the server will start clean.

Once a day should do it, if you go ahead. You will notice users slowing down after the cache is dumped.

SEP

['chris']

hi

I would like to delete, because our proxy users have a problem
with one website (booking engine).
Some users can work with these webseite without problems
and some of them get page errors.
Shift-Refresh doesn't help.
Or how can I delete not the whole cache,
but only the cache of these webseite ?

greetings
chris

[Stuart Browne]

What do the Squid logs say about that website for the affected workstations?

['chris']

I don't know because I deleted the whole cache and now it seems to work without problems.

['chris']

is it any way to delete the cache from only one webseite instead of the whole cache from the all webseites ?

[xyko_1]

Hi Chris,

If your problem occurs only for known sites you may tell squid not to cache those sites.

See the documentation on http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/FAQ-7.html#ss7.8

regards,
xyko

['chris']

thanks,

but should I really put this:
^
before the URL ?

acl XYZZY url_regex ^http://www.i.suck.com/foo.html$
no_cache deny XYZZY

[Stuart Browne]

In a regular expression, the symbol ^ means that the atom is at the very start of a string. The $ symbol means that the atom is at the very end of the string.

i.e. ^http:// means the URL has to start with 'http://'.

The example you've got in your previous post would seem that the enture URL would have to be an exact match.

[Axel Müller_2]

Is there an way to delete only one specific object from the squid cache?

[Stuart Browne]

Hrm.. Try http://www.squid-cache.org/mail-archive/squid-users/199707/0342.html , but I've never tried it.