While the current administration guide is a great place to start when configuring Apache Traffic Server,
there are enough "gotchas" that I thought I'd contribute back to the project and document them.
Please keep in mind the following only applies to creating a forward-only web proxy caching setup.
The following lists the initial steps involved in getting a generic Traffic Server install up and running.
NOTE: Please use the following with Apache Traffic Server v5.0.0 and higher.
IP Address Listening And Ports
Unlike Apache HTTP Server, Traffic Server takes a little more work to get things up and running.
The following settings are all located in the main configuration file, which by default is /usr/local/etc/trafficserver/records.config.
Specifically, the following directive should be set unless you want Traffic Server listening on every possible interface:
LOCAL proxy.local.incoming_ip_to_bind STRING [2601:d:4880:6c3:426c:8fff:fe3a:43f1]
Also, the next directive will tell Traffic Server which ports to listen on:
CONFIG proxy.config.http.server_ports STRING 8080:ipv6
In this example, Apache Traffic Server will now listen on my home machine's public IP, port 8080 for IPv6 only.
I was originally using localhost, but after looking at the HTTP proxy headers that ATS produced, I decided to be more specific.
DNS Round-Robin
Unlike many applications, the default in ApachTraffic Server is to actually round-robin requests among your configured DNS servers.
I didn't like this much, so I disabled it.
CONFIG proxy.config.dns.round_robin_nameservers INT 0
Required Remapping
The Apache Traffic Server default install configures URL re-mapping as required.
This will not allow you to use trafficserver as a foward proxy until you disable it in records.config file or configure remapping specifically for your needs.
CONFIG proxy.config.url_remap.remap_required INT 0
IP-based Access Control List
To setup basic security in your Traffic Server install, you'll have to configure a different file, by default /usr/local/etc/trafficserver/ip_allow.config.
If you've ever done firewall work the theory is very similar...simply list to Traffic Server what is allowed, followed by what is NOT allowed.
# Allow anything on localhost (this is the default configuration based on the # depricated CONFIG proxy.config.http.quick_filter.mask INT 0x482) src_ip=2601:d:4880:6c3:426c:8fff:fe3a:43f1 action=ip_allow method=ALL # Deny everything else. src_ip=0.0.0.0-255.255.255.255 action=ip_deny method=ALL src_ip=::-ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff:ffff action=ip_deny method=ALL
Web Cache Size
The Apache Traffic Server default install configures this to be 256MB, a rather small size as is noted in the configuration file.
I eventually went with 1GB. The following is found in the config file /usr/local/etc/trafficserver/storage.config.
var/trafficserver 1G
Web Cache Partitions
The Apache Traffic Server default install doesn't really provide for this. I found over time this can cause all sorts of issues relating to disk lock contention.
The following is found in the config file /usr/local/etc/trafficserver/volume.config.
volume=1 scheme=http size=25% volume=2 scheme=http size=25% volume=3 scheme=http size=25% volume=4 scheme=http size=25%
Start It Up!
Once the above has been completed, it's time to give it all a try.
sudo /usr/local/bin/trafficserver start
At this point you should have a workable, albeit very default web caching proxy server.
Startup your favorite browser, configure it to use your new proxy server as a web proxy for both HTTP and HTTPS, and watch your browsing speed improve immediately.
Next Page: WebProxyCacheTuning