[squid-users] performance issues Please help

I was wondering if someone could help me with some performance issues?

Our performance is not what I think it should be.
And after awhile it slows down.

I am running Redhat 8
Intell P3 server with 1gig Ram
I am running Squid Version 2.5.Stable5

with options ./configure --enable-storio=diskd,ufs --enable-gnurex

We have on average between 250 and 500 connections to the internet at one
time durring school hours.

We have one full (not a fractional) T1 line to our ISP.

We are using a 2500 Watchguard Firewall and the squid box is sitting on a
(DMZ or optional side of the firewall)

The clients hit the firewall and the firewall sends the http traffic to the
squid box.


Some conf details

cache_mem 250 MB
# cache_swap_low 90
# cache_swap_high 95
maximum_object_size 14096 KB
# maximum_object_size_in_memory 8 KB
# ipcache_size 1024
# ipcache_low 90
# ipcache_high 95
cache_replacement_policy lru
memory_replacement_policy lru
cache_dir ufs /data/squid/var/cache 80000 16 256
# log_ip_on_direct on


lines with # are default.


Store Directory Statistics:
Store Entries : 3689485
Maximum Swap Size : 81920000 KB
Current Store Swap Size: 46268484 KB
Current Capacity : 56% used, 44% free
Store Directory #0 (ufs): /data/squid/var/cache
FS Block Size 4096 Bytes
First level subdirectories: 16
Second level subdirectories: 256
Maximum Size: 81920000 KB
Current Size: 46268484 KB
Percent Used: 56.48%
Filemap bits in use: 3687088 of 4194304 (88%)
Filesystem Space in use: 46985560/117922124 KB (40%)
Filesystem Inodes in use: 3689846/14991360 (25%)
Flags: SELECTED Removal policy: lru
LRU reference age: 195.80 days



Squid Object Cache: Version 2.5.STABLE5-20040420
Start Time: Tue, 20 Apr 2004 23:22:44 GMT
Current Time: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 15:26:03 GMT
Connection information for squid:
Number of clients accessing cache: 3
Number of HTTP requests received: 788280
Number of ICP messages received: 0
Number of ICP messages sent: 0
Number of queued ICP replies: 0
Request failure ratio: 0.00
Average HTTP requests per minute since start: 328.0
Average ICP messages per minute since start: 0.0
Select loop called: 23164260 times, 6.225 ms avg
Cache information for squid:
Request Hit Ratios: 5min: 46.7%, 60min: 50.3%
Byte Hit Ratios: 5min: 19.0%, 60min: 22.4%
Request Memory Hit Ratios: 5min: 0.4%, 60min: 0.8%
Request Disk Hit Ratios: 5min: 32.1%, 60min: 34.7%
Storage Swap size: 46185448 KB
Storage Mem size: 255952 KB
Mean Object Size: 12.54 KB
Requests given to unlinkd: 21702
Median Service Times (seconds) 5 min 60 min:
HTTP Requests (All): 0.12106 0.10281
Cache Misses: 0.30459 0.28853
Cache Hits: 0.00919 0.00678
Near Hits: 0.19742 0.18699
Not-Modified Replies: 0.00179 0.00179
DNS Lookups: 0.00278 0.00278
ICP Queries: 0.00000 0.00000
Resource usage for squid:
UP Time: 144198.544 seconds
CPU Time: 3084.180 seconds
CPU Usage: 2.14%
CPU Usage, 5 minute avg: 5.98%
CPU Usage, 60 minute avg: 6.03%
Process Data Segment Size via sbrk(): 664610 KB
Maximum Resident Size: 0 KB
Page faults with physical i/o: 200238
Memory usage for squid via mallinfo():
Total space in arena: 664610 KB
Ordinary blocks: 664601 KB 41 blks
Small blocks: 0 KB 0 blks
Holding blocks: 2760 KB 3 blks
Free Small blocks: 0 KB
Free Ordinary blocks: 8 KB
Total in use: 667361 KB 100%
Total free: 8 KB 0%
Total size: 667370 KB
Memory accounted for:
Total accounted: 573691 KB
memPoolAlloc calls: 113950836
memPoolFree calls: 101771008
File descriptor usage for squid:
Maximum number of file descriptors: 1024
Largest file desc currently in use: 229
Number of file desc currently in use: 223
Files queued for open: 0
Available number of file descriptors: 801
Reserved number of file descriptors: 100
Store Disk files open: 15
Internal Data Structures:
3685496 StoreEntries
54433 StoreEntries with MemObjects
54370 Hot Object Cache Items
3683103 on-disk objects