decoy.pl -- no-ad redirection utility for squid or compatible cache apps
DESCRIPTION
decoy.pl is written for squid. yet it can be used in any cache or
application with the same behaviour (as squid).
decoy.pl works as follows:
get line (url) from the standard input (squid) then check if this line
can be matched against list of regular expression patterns. if found
return specific url (usually empty gif image--1x1 transparent). if no
match found it will return empty line.
decoy.pl will reload configuration and patterns list if any of those two
files has been changed during decoy.pl's run time. reload will be done
on HUP signal as well. checks for file changes are performed on 1 minute
(could be configurable in the future).
for setup instructions see INSTALL section below.
FILES
Used files are:
decoy.pl
this is the main executable--can be placed anywhere you want.
decoy.cfg
this is configuration file which can be placed in one of these
locations:
/etc/decoy.cfg
/usr/etc/decoy.cfg
/usr/local/etc/decoy.cfg
/usr/local/decoy/decoy.cfg
and finally in the current working directory (for test purposes
mostly).
patterns.def
this file holds regular expressions (well mostly simple strings
matching known ad hosts). each line is considered expression. empty
lines or lines with leading `#' will be ignored.
this file name is not fixed and can be changed in the decoy.cfg
access.log
this file is used to log decoy.pl activity. its name is not fixed
and can be changed in decoy.cfg. (see CONFIGURATION)
profile.log
this file is used to log used patterns, i.e. every matched pattern
will be logged for later statistics.
CONFIGURATION
Example
PATTERNS=/usr/local/decoy/patterns.def
LOG=/usr/local/decoy/access.log
PROFILE=/usr/local/decoy/profile.log
REDIRECT=http://192.168.3.1/pub/banner.gif
PATTERNS
which file to be loaded as pattern definition.
LOG which file to be used as activity log.
PROFILE
which file to be used as profile (pattern usage) log.
REDIRECT
url to which requests will be redirected if pattern matched.
INSTALL
install decoy.pl anywhere you want. edit decoy.cfg as you want and set
it in one of the locations mentioned in the FILES/decoy.cfg section
above. edit squid.conf and set "redirect_program" to point location of
decoy.pl. for example my is:
redirect_program /usr/local/decoy/decoy.pl
restart squid
this should be enough, if you have problems contact me :)
TIPS
if you want to check what are the top 10 matched patterns, the simplest
way to do is:
cat profile.log | sort | uniq -c | sort -r | head -n 10
in the directory where `profile.log' is. this only works if profile log
is enabled and its name is set to `profile.log', otherwise you have to
fix the command line above.
it is good idea to add all patterns you can think of (usefull really)
and at the end of the month (or any time period you want) to sort the
profile and use it as patterns list. one way to do this is:
cat profile.log | sort | uniq -c | sort -r | cut -f 2 > patterns.def
this will overwrite your original patterns file so make a copy before!
this will not work if patterns contain spaces. the good thing is that
profile entries are sorted by match count so most used patterns will be
probed first.
FEEDBACK
it would be very nice if you send me your top 10 matched patterns with
their hit counts, so I'll be able to maintain useable sample of the
patterns file with decoy.pl distribution package.
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