[squid-users] Browser auto-complete and squid

On most web browsers have URL auto-completion. If put a single word URL
in the location bar. If the DNS lookup fails, the browser prepends www.
and appends .com to the name then tries again. If the new URL DNS lookup
matches, the URL is loaded.

So, if I type in BBC into the location bar, bbc fails. The browser then
tries www.bbc.com. This is valid. Mozilla will then take me to
www.bbc.com (which in this case, immediately re-directs me to bbc.co.uk)

When the browser points to a caching proxy, it never fails a DNS lookup
so the browser auto-complete never cuts in. I can't think of any browser
level solution, however, this functionality could easily be employed at
the caching proxy level.

I would like a way to set squid so that if it received a one-word URL,
it first tries to resolve the URL (It may be a valid hostname on the
local network). If resolution fails, it tries prepending www and
appending .com to the URL. If the new URL is valid, sends a redirect to
the web browser to the new URL. This is important where I have deployed
a cybercafe with Squid as the caching proxy; many users expect the URL
auto-complete to work.

Any ideas how I could add this functionality to squid would be great.
Received on Mon Oct 04 2004 - 18:03:58 MDT