10. Access Controls

10.1 Introduction

Squid's access control scheme is relatively comprehensive and difficult for some people to understand. There are two different components: ACL elements, and access lists. An access list consists of an allow or deny action followed by a number of ACL elements.

ACL elements

Note: The information here is current for version 2.5.

Squid knows about the following types of ACL elements:

• src: source (client) IP addresses
• dst: destination (server) IP addresses
• myip: the local IP address of a client's connection
• srcdomain: source (client) domain name
• dstdomain: destination (server) domain name
• srcdom_regex: source (client) regular expression pattern matching
• dstdom_regex: destination (server) regular expression pattern matching
• time: time of day, and day of week
• url_regex: URL regular expression pattern matching
• urlpath_regex: URL-path regular expression pattern matching, leaves out the protocol and hostname
• port: destination (server) port number
• myport: local port number that client connected to
• proto: transfer protocol (http, ftp, etc)
• method: HTTP request method (get, post, etc)
• browser: regular expression pattern matching on the request's user-agent header
• ident: string matching on the user's name
• ident_regex: regular expression pattern matching on the user's name
• src_as: source (client) Autonomous System number
• dst_as: destination (server) Autonomous System number
• proxy_auth: user authentication via external processes
• proxy_auth_regex: user authentication via external processes
• snmp_community: SNMP community string matching
• maxconn: a limit on the maximum number of connections from a single client IP address
• req_mime_type: regular expression pattern matching on the request content-type header
• arp: Ethernet (MAC) address matching
• rep_mime_type: regular expression pattern matching on the reply (downloaded content) content-type header. This is only usable in the http_reply_access directive, not http_access.
• external: lookup via external acl helper defined by external_acl_type

Notes:

Not all of the ACL elements can be used with all types of access lists (described below). For example, snmp_community is only meaningful when used with snmp_access. The src_as and dst_as types are only used in cache_peer_access access lists.

The arp ACL requires the special configure option --enable-arp-acl. Furthermore, the ARP ACL code is not portable to all operating systems. It works on Linux, Solaris, and some *BSD variants.

The SNMP ACL element and access list require the --enable-snmp configure option.

Some ACL elements can cause processing delays. For example, use of src_domain and srcdom_regex require a reverse DNS lookup on the client's IP address. This lookup adds some delay to the request.

Each ACL element is assigned a unique name. A named ACL element consists of a list of values. When checking for a match, the multiple values use OR logic. In other words, an ACL element is matched when any one of its values is a match.

You can't give the same name to two different types of ACL elements. It will generate a syntax error.

You can put different values for the same ACL name on different lines. Squid combines them into one list.

Access Lists

There are a number of different access lists:

• http_access: Allows HTTP clients (browsers) to access the HTTP port. This is the primary access control list.
• http_reply_access: Allows HTTP clients (browsers) to receive the reply to their request. This further restricts permissions given by http_access, and is primarily intended to be used together with the rep_mime_type acl type for blocking different content types.
• icp_access: Allows neighbor caches to query your cache with ICP.
• miss_access: Allows certain clients to forward cache misses through your cache. This further restricts permissions given by http_access, and is primarily intended to be used for enforcing sibling relations by denying siblings from forwarding cache misses through your cache.
• no_cache: Defines responses that should not be cached.
• redirector_access: Controls which requests are sent through the redirector pool.
• ident_lookup_access: Controls which requests need an Ident lookup.
• always_direct: Controls which requests should always be forwarded directly to origin servers.
• never_direct: Controls which requests should never be forwarded directly to origin servers.
• snmp_access: Controls SNMP client access to the cache.
• broken_posts: Defines requests for which squid appends an extra CRLF after POST message bodies as required by some broken origin servers.
• cache_peer_access: Controls which requests can be forwarded to a given neighbor (peer).

Notes:

An access list rule consists of an allow or deny keyword, followed by a list of ACL element names.

An access list consists of one or more access list rules.

Access list rules are checked in the order they are written. List searching terminates as soon as one of the rules is a match.

If a rule has multiple ACL elements, it uses AND logic. In other words, all ACL elements of the rule must be a match in order for the rule to be a match. This means that it is possible to write a rule that can never be matched. For example, a port number can never be equal to both 80 AND 8000 at the same time.

To summarise the acl logics can be described as:

        http_access allow|deny acl AND acl AND ...
            OR
        http_access allow|deny acl AND acl AND ...
            OR
        ...

If none of the rules are matched, then the default action is the opposite of the last rule in the list. Its a good idea to be explicit with the default action. The best way is to thse the all ACL. For example:

        acl all src 0/0
        http_access deny all

10.2 How do I allow my clients to use the cache?

Define an ACL that corresponds to your client's IP addresses. For example:

        acl myclients src 172.16.5.0/24

        http_access allow myclients

10.3 how do I configure Squid not to cache a specific server?

        acl someserver dstdomain .someserver.com
        no_cache deny someserver

10.4 How do I implement an ACL ban list?

As an example, we will assume that you would like to prevent users from accessing cooking recipes.

One way to implement this would be to deny access to any URLs that contain the words ``cooking'' or ``recipe.'' You would use these configuration lines:

        acl Cooking1 url_regex cooking
        acl Recipe1 url_regex recipe
        http_access deny Cooking1
        http_access deny Recipe1
        http_access allow all

Another way is to deny access to specific servers which are known to hold recipes. For example:

        acl Cooking2 dstdomain www.gourmet-chef.com
        http_access deny Cooking2
        http_access allow all

10.5 How do I block specific users or groups from accessing my cache?

Ident

You can use ident lookups to allow specific users access to your cache. This requires that an ident server process runs on the user's machine(s). In your squid.conf configuration file you would write something like this:

        ident_lookup_access allow all
        acl friends ident kim lisa frank joe
        http_access allow friends
        http_access deny all

Proxy Authentication

Another option is to use proxy-authentication. In this scheme, you assign usernames and passwords to individuals. When they first use the proxy they are asked to authenticate themselves by entering their username and password.

In Squid v2 this authentication is hanled via external processes. For information on how to configure this, please see Configuring Proxy Authentication.

10.6 Do you have a CGI program which lets users change their own proxy passwords?

Pedro L Orso has adapted the Apache's htpasswd into a CGI program called chpasswd.cgi.

10.7 Is there a way to do ident lookups only for a certain host and compare the result with a userlist in squid.conf?

You can use the ident_access directive to control for which hosts Squid will issue ident lookup requests.

Additionally, if you use a ident ACL in squid conf, then Squid will make sure an ident lookup is performed while evaluating the acl even if iden_access does not indicate ident lookups should be performed.

However, Squid does not wait for the lookup to complete unless the ACL rules require it. Consider this configuration:

        acl host1 src 10.0.0.1
        acl host2 src 10.0.0.2
        acl pals  ident kim lisa frank joe
        http_access allow host1
        http_access allow host2 pals

10.8 Common Mistakes

And/Or logic

You've probably noticed (and been frustrated by) the fact that you cannot combine access controls with terms like ``and'' or ``or.'' These operations are already built in to the access control scheme in a fundamental way which you must understand.

• All elements of an acl entry are OR'ed together.
• All elements of an access entry are AND'ed together. e.g. http_access and icp_access.

For example, the following access control configuration will never work:

        acl ME src 10.0.0.1
        acl YOU src 10.0.0.2
        http_access allow ME YOU

        acl ME src 10.0.0.1
        acl YOU src 10.0.0.2
        http_access allow ME
        http_access allow YOU

        acl US src 10.0.0.1 10.0.0.2
        http_access allow US

allow/deny mixups

I have read through my squid.conf numerous times, spoken to my neighbors, read the FAQ and Squid Docs and cannot for the life of me work out why the following will not work.

I can successfully access cachemgr.cgi from our web server machine here, but I would like to use MRTG to monitor various aspects of our proxy. When I try to use 'squidclient' or GET cache_object from the machine the proxy is running on, I always get access denied.

        acl manager proto cache_object
        acl localhost src 127.0.0.1/255.255.255.255
        acl server    src 1.2.3.4/255.255.255.255
        acl all src 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
        acl ourhosts src 1.2.0.0/255.255.0.0

        http_access deny manager !localhost !server
        http_access allow ourhosts
        http_access deny all

The intent here is to allow cache manager requests from the localhost and server addresses, and deny all others. This policy has been expressed here:

        http_access deny manager !localhost !server

The problem here is that for allowable requests, this access rule is not matched. For example, if the source IP address is localhost, then ``!localhost'' is false and the access rule is not matched, so Squid continues checking the other rules. Cache manager requests from the server address work because server is a subset of ourhosts and the second access rule will match and allow the request. Also note that this means any cache manager request from ourhosts would be allowed.

To implement the desired policy correctly, the access rules should be rewritten as

        http_access allow manager localhost
        http_access allow manager server
        http_access deny manager
        http_access allow ourhosts
        http_access deny all

        miss_access allow manager

You may be concerned that the having five access rules instead of three may have an impact on the cache performance. In our experience this is not the case. Squid is able to handle a moderate amount of access control checking without degrading overall performance. You may like to verify that for yourself, however.

Differences between src and srcdomain ACL types.

For the srcdomain ACL type, Squid does a reverse lookup of the client's IP address and checks the result with the domains given on the acl line. With the src ACL type, Squid converts hostnames to IP addresses at startup and then only compares the client's IP address. The src ACL is preferred over srcdomain because it does not require address-to-name lookups for each request.

10.9 I set up my access controls, but they don't work! why?

If ACLs are giving you problems and you don't know why they aren't working, you can use this tip to debug them.

In squid.conf enable debugging for section 33 at level 2. For example:

debug_options ALL,1 33,2

From now on, your cache.log should contain a line for every request that explains if it was allowed, or denied, and which ACL was the last one that it matched.

If this does not give you sufficient information to nail down the problem you can also enable detailed debug information on ACL processing

debug_options ALL,1 33,2 28,9

From now on, your cache.log should contain detailed traces of all access list processing. Be warned that this can be quite some lines per request.

See also 11.20 Debug Squid

10.10 Proxy-authentication and neighbor caches

The problem...

                       [ Parents ]
                       /         \
                      /           \
               [ Proxy A ] --- [ Proxy B ]
                   |
                   |
                  USER

Proxy A sends and ICP query to Proxy B about an object, Proxy B replies with an ICP_HIT. Proxy A forwards the HTTP request to Proxy B, but does not pass on the authentication details, therefore the HTTP GET from Proxy A fails.

Only ONE proxy cache in a chain is allowed to ``use'' the Proxy-Authentication request header. Once the header is used, it must not be passed on to other proxies.

Therefore, you must allow the neighbor caches to request from each other without proxy authentication. This is simply accomplished by listing the neighbor ACL's first in the list of http_access lines. For example:

        acl proxy-A src 10.0.0.1
        acl proxy-B src 10.0.0.2
        acl user_passwords proxy_auth /tmp/user_passwds

        http_access allow proxy-A
        http_access allow proxy-B
        http_access allow user_passwords
        http_access deny all

10.11 Is there an easy way of banning all Destination addresses except one?

        acl GOOD dst 10.0.0.1
        acl BAD dst 0.0.0.0/0.0.0.0
        http_access allow GOOD
        http_access deny BAD

10.12 Does anyone have a ban list of porn sites and such?

• Jasons Staudenmayer
• Pedro Lineu Orso's List
• Linux Center Hong Kong's List
• Snerpa, an ISP in Iceland operates a DNS-database of IP-addresses of blacklisted sites containing porn, violence, etc. which is utilized using a small perl-script redirector. Information on this on the INfilter webpage.
• The SquidGuard redirector folks provide a blacklist.
• Bill Stearns maintains the sa-blacklist of known spammers. By blocking the spammer web sites in squid, users can no longer use up bandwidth downloading spam images and html. Even more importantly, they can no longer send out requests for things like scripts and gifs that have a unique identifer attached, showing that they opened the email and making their addresses more valuable to the spammer.
• The SleezeBall site has a list of patterns that you can download.

10.13 Squid doesn't match my subdomains

If you are using Squid-2.4 or later then keep in mind that dstdomain acls uses different syntax for exact host matches and entire domain matches. www.example.com matches the exact host www.example.com, while .example.com matches the entire domain example.com (including example.com alone)

There is also subtle issues if your dstdomain ACLs contains matches for both an exact host in a domain and the whole domain where both are in the same domain (i.e. both www.example.com and .example.com). Depending on how your data is ordered this may cause only the most specific of these (e.g. www.example.com) to be used.

NOTE: Current Squid versions (as of Squid-2.4) will warn you when this kind of configuration is used. If your Squid does not warn you while reading the configuration file you do not have the problem described below. Also the configuration here uses the dstdomain syntax of Squid-2.1 or earlier.. (2.2 and later needs to have domains prefixed by a dot)

There is a subtle problem with domain-name based access controls when a single ACL element has an entry that is a subdomain of another entry. For example, consider this list:

        acl FOO dstdomain boulder.co.us vail.co.us co.us

In the first place, the above list is simply wrong because the first two (boulder.co.us and vail.co.us) are unnecessary. Any domain name that matches one of the first two will also match the last one (co.us). Ok, but why does this happen?

The problem stems from the data structure used to index domain names in an access control list. Squid uses Splay trees for lists of domain names. As other tree-based data structures, the searching algorithm requires a comparison function that returns -1, 0, or +1 for any pair of keys (domain names). This is similar to the way that strcmp() works.

The problem is that it is wrong to say that co.us is greater-than, equal-to, or less-than boulder.co.us.

For example, if you said that co.us is LESS than fff.co.us, then the Splay tree searching algorithm might never discover co.us as a match for kkk.co.us.

similarly, if you said that co.us is GREATER than fff.co.us, then the Splay tree searching algorithm might never discover co.us as a match for bbb.co.us.

The bottom line is that you can't have one entry that is a subdomain of another. Squid-2.2 will warn you if it detects this condition.

10.14 Why does Squid deny some port numbers?

It is dangerous to allow Squid to connect to certain port numbers. For example, it has been demonstrated that someone can use Squid as an SMTP (email) relay. As I'm sure you know, SMTP relays are one of the ways that spammers are able to flood our mailboxes. To prevent mail relaying, Squid denies requests when the URL port number is 25. Other ports should be blocked as well, as a precaution.

There are two ways to filter by port number: either allow specific ports, or deny specific ports. By default, Squid does the first. This is the ACL entry that comes in the default squid.conf:

        acl Safe_ports port 80 21 443 563 70 210 1025-65535
        http_access deny !Safe_ports

Another approach is to deny dangerous ports. The dangerous port list should look something like:

        acl Dangerous_ports 7 9 19 22 23 25 53 109 110 119
        http_access deny Dangerous_ports

Please consult the /etc/services file on your system for a list of known ports and protocols.

10.15 Does Squid support the use of a database such as mySQL for storing the ACL list?

Note: The information here is current for version 2.2.

No, it does not.

10.16 How can I allow a single address to access a specific URL?

This example allows only the special_client to access the special_url. Any other client that tries to access the special_url is denied.

        acl special_client src 10.1.2.3
        acl special_url url_regex ^http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/FAQ/$
        http_access allow special_client special_url
        http_access deny special_url

10.17 How can I allow some clients to use the cache at specific times?

Let's say you have two workstations that should only be allowed access to the Internet during working hours (8:30 - 17:30). You can use something like this:

acl FOO src 10.1.2.3 10.1.2.4
acl WORKING time MTWHF 08:30-17:30
http_access allow FOO WORKING
http_access deny FOO

10.18 How can I allow some users to use the cache at specific times?

acl USER1 proxy_auth Dick
acl USER2 proxy_auth Jane
acl DAY time 06:00-18:00
http_access allow USER1 DAY
http_access deny USER1
http_access allow USER2 !DAY
http_access deny USER2

10.19 Problems with IP ACL's that have complicated netmasks

Note: The information here is current for version 2.3.

The following ACL entry gives inconsistent or unexpected results:

        acl restricted  src 10.0.0.128/255.0.0.128 10.85.0.0/16

The best way to fix this problem is to use separate ACL names for each ACL value. For example, change the above to:

        acl restricted1 src 10.0.0.128/255.0.0.128
        acl restricted2 src 10.85.0.0/16

Then, of course, you'll have to rewrite your http_access lines as well.

10.20 Can I set up ACL's based on MAC address rather than IP?

Yes, for some operating systes. Squid calls these ``ARP ACLs'' and they are supported on Linux, Solaris, and probably BSD variants.

NOTE: Squid can only determine the MAC address for clients that are on the same subnet. If the client is on a different subnet, then Squid can not find out its MAC address.

To use ARP (MAC) access controls, you first need to compile in the optional code. Do this with the --enable-arp-acl configure option:

% ./configure --enable-arp-acl ...
% make clean
% make

If everything compiles, then you can add some ARP ACL lines to your squid.conf:

acl M1 arp 01:02:03:04:05:06
acl M2 arp 11:12:13:14:15:16
http_access allow M1
http_access allow M2
http_access deny all

10.21 Debugging ACLs

See 1.9 I set up my access controls, but they don't work! why? and 11.20 Debugging Squid.

10.22 Can I limit the number of connections from a client?

Yes, use the maxconn ACL type in conjunction with http_access deny. For example:

acl losers src 1.2.3.0/24
acl 5CONN maxconn 5
http_access deny 5CONN losers

Given the above configuration, when a client whose source IP address is in the 1.2.3.0/24 subnet tries to establish 6 or more connections at once, Squid returns an error page. Unless you use the deny_info feature, the error message will just say ``access denied.''

The maxconn ACL requires the client_db feature. If you've disabled client_db (for example with client_db off) then maxconn ALCs will not work.

Note, the maxconn ACL type is kind of tricky because it uses less-than comparison. The ACL is a match when the number of established connections is greater than the value you specify. Because of that, you don't want to use the maxconn ACL with http_access allow.

Also note that you could use maxconn in conjunction with a user type (ident, proxy_auth), rather than an IP address type.

10.23 I'm trying to deny foo.com, but it's not working.

In Squid-2.3 we changed the way that Squid matches subdomains. There is a difference between .foo.com and foo.com. The first matches any domain in foo.com, while the latter matches only ``foo.com'' exactly. So if you want to deny bar.foo.com, you should write

acl yuck dstdomain .foo.com
http_access deny yuck

10.24 I want to customize, or make my own error messages.

You can customize the existing error messages as described in Customizable Error Messages. You can also create new error messages and use these in conjunction with the deny_info option.

For example, lets say you want your users to see a special message when they request something that matches your pornography list. First, create a file named ERR_NO_PORNO in the /usr/local/squid/etc/errors directory. That file might contain something like this:

<p>
Our company policy is to deny requests to known porno sites.  If you
feel you've received this message in error, please contact 
the support staff (support@this.company.com, 555-1234).

Next, set up your access controls as follows:

acl porn url_regex "/usr/local/squid/etc/porno.txt"
deny_info ERR_NO_PORNO porn
http_access deny porn
(additional http_access lines ...)

10.25 I want to use local time zone in error messages.

Squid by defaults uses GMT as timestamp in all generated error messages. This to allow the cache to participate in a hierarchy of caches in different timezones without risking confusion about what the time is.

To change the timestamp in Squid generated error messages you must change the Squid signature. See Customizable Error Messages. The signature by defaults uses %T as timestamp, but if you like then you can use %t instead for a timestamp using local time zone.

10.26 I want to put ACL parameters in an external file.

by Adam Aube

Squid can read ACL parameters from an external file. To do this, first place the acl parameters, one per line, in a file. Then, on the ACL line in squid.conf, put the full path to the file in double quotes.

For example, instead of:

        acl trusted_users proxy_auth john jane jim

you would have:

        acl trusted_users proxy_auth "/usr/local/squid/etc/trusted_users.txt"

Inside trusted_users.txt, there is:

        john
        jane
        jim