OK, quick intro…
I work with Linux basically every day at work, I have a vast array of experience, but do not under any circumstance claim to know everything, or even much in comparison to guru’s out there…
I’ve just rebuild my system, (openSuse11.0 x86_64 / WinXP Dual boot). The XP is only for games 
I think I found a bug with squid, my apologies, I couldn’t find where I should post potential bugs ?
–==( The Problem )==–
I was fiddling with the idea of getting the proxy working for my virtual machine a moment ago, and ran into a problem on the 1st attempt to start it.
# rcsquid start
Starting WWW-proxy squid (/var/cache/squid) - Could not create cache_dir !
failed
–==( The Procedure For A Solution )==–
So naturally, I called for google
I located a very useful archived article on opensuse forums, which I can’t find anymore :(.
I then ran a test (which the user in the article mentioned):
# rpm -V squid3
## which compares your installation with the original install RPM...
## if executed after a change (e.g. the squid.conf was changed since install)
## you would get (as an example) the following
# rpm -V squid3
S.5....T c /etc/squid/squid.conf
## indicating which files have changed compared to the original RPM
mine returned nothing (no changes since install).
Ok, so I read the init script (/etc/init.d/squid) and found the following (line 57):
$SQUID_BIN -z -F > /dev/null 2>&1
This creates your cache directory if it doesn’t exists (/var/cache/squid/XX where XX are numbers related to the squid cache structure).
And complains with “Could not create cache_dir !” if it cannot find the “/var/cache/squid” directory which I might add was created and had the squid/root as user/group configuration respectively as per the default installation.
I ran my cache creation parameters for squid… and it returned this output…
# squid -z -F
FATAL: Could not determine fully qualified hostname. Please set 'visible_hostname'
Squid Cache (Version 3.0.STABLE5): Terminated abnormally.
CPU Usage: 0.028 seconds = 0.004 user + 0.024 sys
Maximum Resident Size: 0 KB
Page faults with physical i/o: 27
Ok, this says BUG (missing default config, OR something not mentioned during install that maybe should be pre-configured or dynamically assigned to the hostname of the system).
so i searched the entry in the conf (/etc/squid/squid.conf) and entered my hostname into it.
–==( Results )==–
I then re-ran the command:
# squid -z -F
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Creating Swap Directories
2008/08/13 21:55:26| /var/cache/squid exists
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/00
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/01
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/02
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/03
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/04
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/05
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/06
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/07
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/08
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/09
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/0A
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/0B
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/0C
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/0D
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/0E
2008/08/13 21:55:26| Making directories in /var/cache/squid/0F
Problem solved… and squid started…
–==( Conclusion )==–
Now as I said before, I am no guru, I merely have no big risk of destroying my system as it is thouroughly backed up, so I can fiddle to my hearts content
So, I may have done something prior without the knowledge of what it was, which could in turn have effected squid and its start.
Although as I explained, I think I may actually have stumbled across a special circumstance “bug”.
P.S. Please place this post in the correct place if this is not the right place for bug reporting…
Thanks,
FlAreD