SquidGuard

Using Authentication in SquidGuard

Sometimes it is convenient to allow different user a different kind of access. SquidGuard has the possibility to decide based on the username what this user may have access to.
There are different ways how to setup user authentication:

defining users directly in squidGuard
using LDAP roles (this implies that you either use squidGuard 1.2.1 or higher or have patched your squidGuard with the LDAP patches from Chris Frey; you may wish to read Tips for using LDAP to avoid problems).
retrieving users from a MySQL database (requires squidGuard 1.4 or higher)

In each case you must configure your squid proxy to perform user authentication. In order to achieve this you must configure your squid to authenticate your users. A simple way to add user authentication to squid is the usage of the old ncsa_auth utility. By adding the following three lines to your squid.conf you can enable authenication:

auth_param basic program /usr/libexec/squid/ncsa_auth /etc/squid/squid.passwd
acl password proxy_auth REQUIRED
http_access allow password

Please note that the path to your squid password file and to ncsa_auth may differ on your system. While you can choose for yourself where you want to put your squid password file, ncsa_auth has a fixed location (use find or locate to obtain the correct path).
There are other means of authentication in squid as well. Please refer to the squid site for more information.

Defining users in squidGuard

To grant access based on usernames you have two choices: you can explicitly name the users with the user tag in your squidGuard.conf or you can enter the names to a file (recommended when dealing with many usernames) and use the userlist tag. In both cases you have to include the user definition within a source acl enviroment. The next two examples show how to use the user and the userlist tag:

Including usernames in squidGuard.conf

 src department1 {
     user maria josef susanna micheal george1 
 }

In this example five users are grouped into the source development. This source is used to grant or deny access to defined categories (see the acl definition after the next example).
You can use numbers in usernames. Unfortunately there is currently a bug in squidGuard giving errors when using usernames consisting entirely of numbers. In this case use the userlist (see next example) to regulate user access.

Including userlists in squidGuard.conf

 src department1 {
     userlist dep1users
 }

In this example the squidGuard configuration points to a file, here called dep1users, where the users can be found. The location of the userlist file is relativ to the path of your defined dbhome.
The userlist file is a normal text file of the following format: user1 user2 user3 user4 user5 and so on.

Once you have defined your users you must configure which user(group) has access to which destination. This is done in the acl part of your squidGuard.conf:

Defining userbased access

 acl {
     department1 {
         pass !porn !hacking !warez all
         redirect http://localhost/cgi/blocked?clientaddr=%a&clientuser=%i&clientgroup=%s&url=%u
     }
     default {
         pass white none 
         redirect http://localhost/cgi/blocked?clientaddr=%a&clientuser=%i&clientgroup=%s&url=%u
     }
 }

In this example the department1 user may access all websites except those listed in the porn hacking and warez categories. All other users are only allowed to access what is listed in the white category (whitelisting). Of course you have to define the destinations before setting up the acl. :-)

Using LDAP

Like in the example before you have to specify in the src enviroment where the user information can be found. Additionally you have to define some LDAP specific tags: You must name the upper part of the LDAP directory tree and a password to access the user information (unless you use anonymous bind, which due to security considerations is not always recommended).
The following LDAP specific tags exist:

ldapusersearch	This keyword goes in the `src` config block, and specifies an LDAP URL to use to search for an unknown user name. You can specify multple LDAP URLs per Source block. Use '%s' to reference the username in your LDAP URL. If the search returns a record, the user is considered "found", otherwise the next URL in the same Source block is tried. SquidGuard caches the "found" state of each search, even when a user name is not found. The cache is valid for ldapcachetime seconds.
ldapcachetime	This global keyword specifies the number of seconds to cache LDAP search results before contacting the LDAP server again. This keyword is global and must go outside any Source/Destination/Rule blocks. Setting this value to a reasonably low value can allow simulation of near-realtime user groupings in LDAP without restarting squidguard. Recommended value: 300
ldapbinddn	This global keyword specifies the DN to bind to the LDAP server as.
ldapbindpass	Password to bind to the LDAP server. This is a global keyword.
ldapprotover	This denotes the LDAP protocol version. It is a global keyword. Use this to force squidGuard to connect to the LDAP server with a certain protocol version. If unable to use the specified protocol version, squidguard will enter emergency mode. Valid values: 2 or 3

Example configuration:

LDAP specific setting in squidGuard.conf

 ldapbinddn     cn=root, dc=example, dc=com
 ldapbindpass   myultrasecretpassword

 # ldap cache time in seconds
 ldapcachetime  300

 src my_users { 
     ldapusersearch  ldap://ldap.example.com/cn=squidguardusers,ou=groups,dc=example,dc=com?memberUid?sub?(&(objectclass=posixGroup)(memberUid=%s))
  }

When using LDAP for authentication make sure that the settings in your ldapusersearch line correspond to the user settings in your LDAP server. If the usernames of your users are not saved in "memberUid" but "uid" you have to adapt your ldapusersearch line accordingly. The same is true for the value you enter for "objectclass". You probably habe something like "Person" or "InetOrgPerson" instead.
If the values of ldapusersearch don't match your LDAP user configuration setting the lookup will fail.

Retrieving users from MySQL

(You need squidGuard version 1.4 or higher to use MySQL for authentication.)
Like in the examples mentioned above you need to specify the user lookup in a src enviroment.
To tell squidGuard to fetch the users from MySQL you have to provide the following data:

mysqlusername	This is the username used to connect and query the database. This is a global setting (meaning you specify this outside of a `src` environment).
mysqlpassword	This is the password for the user specified with `mysqlusername` to authenticate against the database. This is a global setting (meaning you specify this outside of a `src` environment).
mysqldb	This is the datebase withing MySQL which holds the tables with the user data. This is a global setting (meaning you specify this outside of a `src` environment).
userquery	With this setting you specify the sql query to be run to retrieve the usernames. This setting must be inside of a `src` environment declaration. Attention: The query must not be ended by a trailing ";" and must not contain more than four statements.

Example configuration:

MySQL specific setting in squidGuard.conf

 mysqlusername proxyadm
 mysqlpassword mysqlpassword
 mysqldb proxyuser

 src outer { 
 userquery select data from pusers
 }