[squid-users] Squid cache siblings configuration

From: Tyler Sweet <tyler_at_tsweet.net>
Date: Sun, 4 Aug 2013 00:22:22 -0500

Hello,

My second message to the mailing list :)

I've run into some problems when it comes to having two squid boxes
configured to be siblings to each other. I wasn't able to pull much
data about what happened, but I can sum it up for you here and then
try to replicate it back when I get access to my home lab again.

We're handling about 100-200 requests a second, mainly medium to small
files, with the occasional 2+GB game update or so. What we saw
happening, even under medium to low load (less than 50 users, probably
closer to 10-20 requests a second) was that when both squid servers
were set up with each other as a cache peer, one or more squid
processes would start to eat memory. Eventually, they would either eat
enough by themselves (22GB) or 4-7 together (each with 4 or more GB of
memory in RSS) to cause the server to run into out of memory
conditions and kill squid.

Originally, I though this was caused by my self-compiled version of
Squid 3.4 on FreeBSD, and since I was low on time and had no time to
look into it further, I reloaded the servers to CentOS 6.4 and used
the repo listed on the squid site to install squid 3.3.8. The problem
persisted, and without any time to troubleshoot I simply disabled the
cache-peer configurations.

I'm pretty sure I've messed up the configuration somehow. Here are
what I think are the relevant config settings I've been using:
# Squid Boxen #################
acl siblings src 172.16.1.91
acl siblings src 172.16.1.90 # Local server
# Cache Peers
htcp_port 4827
htcp_access allow siblings
htcp_clr_access allow siblings
htcp_access deny all
htcp_clr_access deny all
# Sibling
cache_peer 172.16.1.91 sibling 3128 4827 htcp
cache_peer_access 172.16.1.91 deny STEAM_CONTENT
cache_peer_access 172.16.1.91 allow all

Now, looking at the config I feel like I should probably have set the
"siblings" acl separately on both servers, to deny HTCP access from
looping around. But I don't know if that looping would have had this
affect or not, nor do I remember seeing anything in the logs about
looping happening. Can anyone offer some guidance on this? Is it
simply that I messed up the initial configuration?

Thanks!
-Tyler Sweet
Received on Sun Aug 04 2013 - 05:23:15 MDT

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