Cache / Proxy

Proxies are intermediaries that sit between clients and servers. A client connects to a proxy, and then the proxy decides if the client can receive content from a server. If so, the proxy makes its own connection to the server and then passes back data to the client.

There are two major types of proxies:

Forward Proxy:

Typically sits between local clients and remote Internet servers. It can be used to control which web sites that clients are allowed to load, or log servers and URLs clients are visiting. These mostly work with HTTP, but in special cases can also work with HTTPS.

Reverse Proxy:

Typically sits between remote clients and local servers. These allow for load balancing, failover, or other intelligent connection routing for public services such as web servers.

Squid

Danger

The add-on packages Squid, SquidGuard and Lightsquid are deprecated in pfSense Plus and pfSense CE software due to a large number of unfixed upstream security vulnerabilities. Netgate STRONGLY recommends that users uninstall these packages. The packages will no longer function in the next major release of pfSense Plus and pfSense CE software.

Squid is primarily a forward proxy used for client access control. It can, however, be used in a reverse proxy role if needed. The reverse proxy capabilities are inferior to HAProxy, however.

• Tuning the Squid Package
• Configuring the SquidGuard Package

See also

• Troubleshooting the Squid Package

HAProxy

HAProxy is a powerful reverse proxy that can handle many different types of tasks and scales well for large deployments.

• HAProxy package

• Troubleshooting the HAProxy Package