[K12OSN] Squid / Socks

[Les Bell]

daniel.hunt at iibbank.ie wrote:

>>
I know that Squid is a simple http proxy - what I'm looking for is a
complete proxy system ... that can help filter everything including (but
not
limited to) IM applications / browsers / other stuff :p / etc
<<

Almost by definition, there's no such thing. For application layer
protocols, because there are so many of them and they work so differently
(compare FTP and Real Audio, for example), you need a different proxy
server for each protocol. Squid is unusually sophisticated in being both an
http and ftp proxy (as well as wais). Everything else, you deal with on a
protocol-by-protocol basis, or you use a transport-layer approach like
socks, or you do packet filtering on ip addresses, protocols, port numbers
and flags.

Best,

--- Les Bell, RHCE, CISSP
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]