Re: [LUG] Local DNS, webcaching??

[Robin Cornelius <robin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

M.Blackmore wrote:

> I did this once some years back, but now have no memory of it (severe
> bouts of illness characterised by greyouts/blackouts seems to take a
> chunk of memory cells with it every time it happens :-(( and my cursory
> notes are incomplete and whats left I cannae ken nay muir...
>
> Since moving to ADSL (via the Phone Coop but on BT local copper and
> however BT's wire gets to the Phone Coop) it seems to take ages for
> webpages to initiate loading. On a 2mb link once each bit starts loading
> it goes quick quick, so browsing a site is a series of rapid rabbit hops
> with gaps of irritating length in between.
>
>  
I see this exact effect *when* i enable my local proxy server, may be 
there is a transparent proxy between you and the web. Although it 
shoudn't really do this. Prehapse its due to my network layout why i see 
this effect. May be the problem is after the transparent proxy so the 
proxy gets all the page then sends it all at once giving the effect you 
describe. If this is true a local proxy will have little effect on the 
problem.

> Is the solution to the "looking up" time lag a local DNS cache? How can
> I set that up?
>
>  
Install bind8 /bind9 (named). May distros have bind setup to to exactly 
what you want out of the box. This should reduce the total amout of 
outgoing dns traffic as common sites will be cached.

> Is the solution to the way each backstep on a browser results in a long
> wait before the items load up to cache the pages locally on the home
> network?
>
>  
A local proxy *should* help in thory as pages can just be recalled from 
the cache.

Squid is a nice http proxy. Great for stopping people accessing game 
sites when they should be working as well.

> We've got a dedicated fileserver (grossly overspecified with 256mb ram
> and 450mhz!) and a smoothwall box.
>
>  
With proxys the more memory you have the better really as then more 
cache can be held in ram rather than on disk. but that server should be 
fine, assuming you havn't got a silly number of people accssing the web!


Robin



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