On Sun, 2011-11-06 at 14:17 +1300, Amos Jeffries wrote: > On 6/11/2011 1:39 p.m., Andrew Beverley wrote: > > Hi, > > > > I am using the ACL feature whereby the parameters can be read from a > > file. For example: > > > > acl session_day time "/var/www/announce_days.txt" > > > > Understandably, the file only appears to be read when the configuration > > file is parsed, rather than each time the ACL is checked. However, I > > need it to be checked more often, as I have a system configuration > > interface that writes a day of the week to the file, which subsequently > > causes a splash page to be shown on a particular day. I would like > > configuration to be done without having to reload the Squid > > configuration file. > > > > Would any consideration be given to a patch to check the ACL file more > > often? Could/should it be an extra configuration option to check the > > file each request? I appreciate that this would come with a greater > > overhead. Is there a better way to achieve this? > > A better way currently available would be to use an external_acl helper > to read and response OK/FAIL. You probably want to pass something > relatively static (%PROTO or %METHOD) as the ACL format to reduce the > overheads. With time calculations vs "now" you can ignore the actual > input format.
Good idea, thanks. I've now written a little perl helper to do this. It would be nice to add this to the main squid source code. Shall I just submit as a bzr diff as normal? Is there any documentation for the external helpers that I should also add to? On a similar subject, is there any mileage in making the FORMAT optional for external_acl_type? There is obviously no need for it in this case, although as you have shown it is easy to workaround with a fairly static parameter. Andy
