Squid Cache

[uncle john]

Thinking of setting up a caching server inside the firewall. Rationale: Users are encouraged, in the first instance, to use the bandwidth quota allocated to the caching server rather accessing an internet site directly and using up bandwidth quota allocated to their own device. Saves unnecessary duplication of downloads and associated cost.
Good idea?

[heuristic]

Sure if you're a nice guy! (you must be!) . The logic is sound, however web content is so dynamic these days I'd think that the cache would be stale pretty quick.

[uncle john]

Many households I know have a designated member for downloading movies etc. In one instance I know of members are even happy for the designated member to consume all the allocated quota cos they later share the movies. Just seems it would be more manageable to have a central shared cache for movies etc in this sort of scenario.
However I'm concerned about the workability of an intercepting proxy server for this sort of use. (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proxy_server ) Are there issues for this sort of usage?

[DoesItMatter]

I don't think a squid cache can be used to cache movie files.

I don't think its practical. It would consume WAY too much memory.

You're better off setting up some kind of central file share on one
of the computers and saving the movies to that location.

Internet caches are meant to be in the kilobyte sizes, not huge
megabyte sizes, i.e. frequently visited web pages with not a lot of
streaming video, etc. And if you setup the cache on the router
itself, you'd run out of space in no time.

For example, a typical DivX avi file that's ripped from a DVD is usually
around 700 MB - to fit on an 80 min CD per 'accepted' standards.

No home router has that kind of space, even with modifications.
It would have to be on a shared USB drive or stored on a computer
hard drive somewhere on your network.

I know there's some beta USB support for drives with
Gargoyle/OpenWRT, but why have the router do all that extra
work if you're already having it do QoS, bandwidth monitoring, etc.
Give the little guy a break! Much better to map a network share!

[uncle john]

DoesItMatter: Thanks for your comments. If nothing else they prompted me to do a little more research. I found typical cache size to be 4MB with the max about 100MB. Like you indicated this is certainly not suitable for movies.
BTW when I mentioned "within the firewall" I had in mind a server on the LAN. I was not considering a storage device connected directly to the Gargoyle router.

[DoesItMatter]

If you can set aside a separate drive for a fully open share on a Windows XP or Vista machine inside the firewall, that should be all you need for the big stuff.

Preferably a SATA drive, with nothing used other than shares.

That machine would have to be left on though, I leave my PC's running 24/7 anyway, and the only time it would suffer is if people are accessing the files.

Hell, if you could make it a wired PC... put 2 NIC's in there,
1 dedicated NIC just to connect the PC to the network/router LAN,
and another NIC that would provide the internet access to the PC.

That way the PC would barely see any hit on performance and anyone using the shares could use it at full speed.

[uncle john]

Thanks for your advice. I hadn't considered the speed improvement of wired versus WiFi.