LOG_DB_DAEMON(8)

NAME
log_db_daemon - Database logging daemon for Squid

Version 0.5.

SYNOPSIS
log_db_daemon DSN [options]

DESCRIPTION
This program writes Squid access.log entries to a database. Presently only accepts the squid native log format.

The script has been developed and tested in the following environment:

squid-2.7 Squid-3.2
mysql 5.0.26 and 5.1
perl 5.8.8
OpenSUSE 10.2

OPTIONS

DSN Database DSN encoded as a path. This is sent as the access_log file path.

    Sample configuration:
      access_log daemon:/host/database/table/username/password squid

      to leave a parameter unspecified use a double slash:
      access_log daemon://database/table/username/password squid

    Default "DBI:mysql:database=squid"

--debug
    Write debug info to stderr.

CONFIGURATION

  Squid configuration
access_log directive

The path to the access log file is used to provide the database connection parameters.

  access_log daemon:/mysql_host:port/database/table/username/password squid

The 'daemon' prefix is mandatory and tells squid that the logfile_daemon helper is to be used instead of the normal file logging.

The last parameter tells squid which log format to use when writing lines to the log daemon. Presently squid format is supported.

mysql_host:port
    Host where the mysql server is running. If left empty, 'localhost' is assumed.

database
    Name of the database to connect to. If left empty, 'squid_log' is assumed.

table
    Name of the database table where log lines are stored. If left empty, 'access_log' is assumed.

username
    Username to use when connecting to the database. If left empty, 'squid' is assumed.

password
    Password to use when connecting to the database. If left empty, no password is used.

To leave all fields to their default values, you can use a single slash:

  access_log daemon:/ squid

To specify only the database password, which by default is empty, you must leave unspecified all the other parameters by using null strings:

  access_log daemon://///password squid

logfile_daemon directive

This is the current way of telling squid where the logfile daemon resides.

  logfile_daemon /path/to/squid/libexec/logfile-daemon_mysql.pl

The script must be copied to the location specified in the directive.

  Database configuration
Let's call the database 'squid_log' and the log table 'access_log'. The username and password for the db connection will be both 'squid'.

Database

Create the database:

  CREATE DATABASE squid_log;

User

Create the user:

  GRANT INSERT,SELECT,CREATE ON squid_log.* TO 'squid'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'squid';
  FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Note that only CREATE, INSERT and SELECT privileges are granted to the 'squid' user. This ensures that the logfile daemon script cannot change or modify the log entries.

Table

The Daemon will attempt to initialize this table if none exists when it starts.

The table created should look like:

  CREATE TABLE access_log (
    id                   INTEGER NOT NULL AUTO_INCREMENT PRIMARY KEY,
    time_since_epoch     DECIMAL(15,3),
    time_response        INTEGER,
    ip_client            CHAR(15),
    ip_server            CHAR(15),
    http_status_code     VARCHAR(10),
    http_reply_size      INTEGER,
    http_method          VARCHAR(20),
    http_url             TEXT,
    http_username        VARCHAR(20),
    http_mime_type       VARCHAR(50),
    squid_hier_status    VARCHAR(20),
    squid_request_status VARCHAR(20)
  );

DATA EXTRACTION

  Sample queries.

Clients accessing the cache
      SELECT DISTINCT ip_client FROM access_log;

Number of request per day
      SELECT
        DATE(FROM_UNIXTIME(time_since_epoch)) AS date_day,
        COUNT(*) AS num_of_requests
      FROM access_log
      GROUP BY 1
      ORDER BY 1;

Request status count
    To obtain the raw count of each request status:

      SELECT squid_request_status, COUNT(*) AS n
      FROM access_log
      GROUP BY squid_request_status
      ORDER BY 2 DESC;

    To calculate the percentage of each request status:

      SELECT
        squid_request_status,
        (COUNT(*)/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100) AS percentage
      FROM access_log
      GROUP BY squid_request_status
      ORDER BY 2 DESC;

    To distinguish only between HITs and MISSes:

      SELECT
        'hits',
        (SELECT COUNT(*)
        FROM access_log
        WHERE squid_request_status LIKE '%HIT%')
        /
        (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100
        AS percentage
      UNION
      SELECT
        'misses',
        (SELECT COUNT(*)
        FROM access_log
        WHERE squid_request_status LIKE '%MISS%')
        /
        (SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100
        AS percentage;

Response time ranges
      SELECT
        '0..500',
        COUNT(*)/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100 AS percentage
      FROM access_log
      WHERE time_response >= 0 AND time_response < 500
      UNION
      SELECT
        '500..1000',
        COUNT(*)/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100 AS percentage
      FROM access_log
      WHERE time_response >= 500 AND time_response < 1000
      UNION
      SELECT
        '1000..2000',
        COUNT(*)/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100 AS percentage
      FROM access_log
      WHERE time_response >= 1000 AND time_response < 2000
      UNION
      SELECT
        '>= 2000',
        COUNT(*)/(SELECT COUNT(*) FROM access_log)*100 AS percentage
      FROM access_log
      WHERE time_response >= 2000;

Traffic by mime type
      SELECT
        http_mime_type,
        SUM(http_reply_size) as total_bytes
      FROM access_log
      GROUP BY http_mime_type
      ORDER BY 2 DESC;

Traffic by client
      SELECT
        ip_client,
        SUM(http_reply_size) AS total_bytes
      FROM access_log
      GROUP BY 1
      ORDER BY 2 DESC;

KNOWN ISSUES

  Speed issues
The MyISAM storage engine is known to be faster than the InnoDB one, so although it doesn't support transactions and referential integrity, it might be more appropriate in this scenario. You might want to append "ENGINE=MYISAM" at the end of the table creation code in the above SQL script.

Indexes should be created according to the queries that are more frequently run. The DDL script only creates an implicit index for the primary key column.

  Table cleanup
This script currently implements only the "L" (i.e. "append a line to the log") command, therefore the log lines are never purged from the table. This approach has an obvious scalability problem.

One solution would be to implement e.g. the "rotate log" command in a way that would calculate some summary values, put them in a "summary table" and then delete the lines used to calculate those values.

Similar cleanup code could be implemented in an external script and run periodically independently from squid log commands.

  Testing
This script has only been tested in low-volume scenarios (single client, less than 10 req/s). Tests in high volume environments could reveal performance bottlenecks and bugs.

AUTHOR
This program was written by Marcello Romani <marcello.romani@libero.it> , Amos Jeffries <amosjeffries@squid-cache.org>

COPYRIGHT
 * Copyright (C) 1996-2026 The Squid Software Foundation and contributors
 *
 * Squid software is distributed under GPLv2+ license and includes
 * contributions from numerous individuals and organizations.
 * Please see the COPYING and CONTRIBUTORS files for details.

Copyright (C) 2008 by Marcello Romani

This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself, either Perl version 5.8.8 or, at your option, any later version of Perl 5 you may have available.

QUESTIONS
Questions on the usage of this program can be sent to the Squid Users mailing list <squid-users@lists.squid-cache.org>

REPORTING BUGS
Bug reports need to be made in English. See https://wiki.squid-cache.org/SquidFaq/BugReporting for details of what you need to include with your bug report.

Report bugs or bug fixes using https://bugs.squid-cache.org/

Report serious security bugs to Squid Bugs <squid-bugs@lists.squid-cache.org>

Report ideas for new improvements to the Squid Developers mailing list <squid-dev@lists.squid-cache.org>

SEE ALSO
squid (8), GPL (7),

The Squid FAQ wiki https://wiki.squid-cache.org/SquidFaq

The Squid Configuration Manual http://www.squid-cache.org/Doc/config/