> Have you mentioned any of this to Tim?

Yes, I emailed the author on 25 September 2001 and explained that my
squidGuard was working, but his squidGuard module was not seeing my
blacklists. I included my dbhome, domainlist declaration and full path
(almost exactly as I explained it in my earlier message listed below).

I received a very prompt answer on 26 September 2001 that said:
---------------------------------------
> The domainlist statement should be covered by a destination
> group statement. Then you have to set the default ACL
> appropriately to disallow the destination group with the
> domainlist. Otherwise it won't work. You should read about
> the configuration file a little bit on www.squidguard.org.
---------------------------------------

I wrote back on 26 September 2001, thanked him for his answer, and
apologized that I wasn't clear in my first email. I gave a more verbose
explanation, and I included my full squidGuard.conf file. I did not
receive an answer to that email. It wasn't until a couple a days ago
that I finally got around to spending a little more time looking at the
problem.

> It is still in beta right now, so the point is to find
> these problems and get them fixed--not expect it
> to 'just work' out of the box.

It is interesting that you would mention it being in beta, since that
fact is not mentioned on the module's web page:
<http://www.niemueller.de/webmin/modules/squidguard/>, nor is it
mentioned on the author's FAQ page:
<http://www.niemueller.de/webmin/download-faq.shtml>. Apparently, this
line on the web page: "Latest Version is 0.88.1" is meant to notify us
that the module is in beta, and ask us to be on the lookout for bugs?

I am aware of the "standard" of using version numbers < 1 for beta
software. However, Webmin is currently at version 0.90 and there is
nothing on that web site warning that it is beta software, either. I've
been using Webmin through maybe 8 or 10 versions, and I've never
experienced a reportable bug. I've noticed that many of the 3rd party
Webmin modules have used version numbers similar to the current Webmin
version; even more reason why one would not expect this to be beta
software.

Thanks for your response.

Rick


-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Joe Cooper
Sent: Tuesday, November 06, 2001 11:18 PM
To: Rick Matthews
Cc: Squidguard Mailing List
Subject: Re: squidGuard Module for Webmin


Hi Rick,

Have you mentioned any of this to Tim?  (The fellow who wrote it for us,
and has been working on enhancements and bugfixes for another company
recently.  It will see quite a bit more work from Swell pretty soon as
well, as we will be integrating SquidGuard into our systems soon.)

The module isn't perfect yet, but Tim really does try hard to make it
work well by the time he calls it 'stable'.  It is still in beta right
now, so the point is to find these problems and get them fixed--not
expect it to 'just work' out of the box.  Nonetheless it is the only GUI
I know of that will address all of the various aspects of SquidGuard
administration (adding|removing|viewing the db, setting up the access
groups and rules, etc.).

Just a thought...

Rick Matthews wrote:

> Well, I answered my own question by looking through his cgi scripts in
> </usr/libexec/webmin/squidguard>.
>
> The author has made the assumption that your blacklists are in:
>
> <$dbhome/blacklists/porn>
> <$dbhome/blacklists/ads>
> etc.
>
> This assumption is contrary to the documentation, which says:
> domainlist filename
> where: filename is either a path relative to dbhome or an absolute
path
> (i.e. /full/path) to a database file.
>
> So, the following combination works with squidGuard and conforms to
the
> documentation:
> dbhome        /usr/local/squidGuard/db
> domainlist    block/blacklist/porn/domains
> full path     /usr/local/squidGuard/db/block/blacklist/porn/domains
>
> The above combination does not work with the Webmin squidGuard module,
> however, due to the author's incorrect assumption concerning the path.
>
> Since I've been very interested in seeing what the squidGuard module
> does for you, I made a few changes so that my path declarations would
> conform to the author's assumptions. After bouncing squid I tried the
> squidGuard module again.
>
> This time the blacklists option opened to show an icon for each of my
> blacklist categories (porn, ads, etc.) Clicking on the icon apparently
> causes the module to completely read the blacklist before opening a
page
> that allows you to search or add to the files. Clicking on <porn>
caused
> a delay of 20 - 25 seconds before presenting the next screen; clicking
> on <ads> brought up the next screen in less than a second.
>
> I guess the last straw was that in each of the categories, the search
> page had a red notice at the top that said "This blacklist is
disabled".
> There is also a link labeled "Enable this blacklist".  I have no idea
> why the module thinks my blacklists are disabled, but at this point I
> don't really care.
>
> I've uninstalled the squidGuard module for Webmin.

--
Joe Cooper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.swelltech.com
Web Caching Appliances and Support


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