[squid-users] Problem in understanding squid refresh algorithm...

As I wrote in another post I've got problem with my version of squid. It
seems like it doesn't want to cache anything until I set up
refresh_pattern with very high values, something like:

refresh_pattern . 35000000 100% 35000000

I don't know if it's my fault, I mean, maybe there's something wrong in
my squid.conf (I've even tried to post it here, but I got no
response...)

Anyway, I don't really understand that well how squid decide what is
fresh (thus it can keep it in cache) or stale (therefore something to
purge).
Reading squid.conf.default I can read:

Basically a cached object is:
#
# FRESH if expires < now, else STALE
# STALE if age > max
# FRESH if lm-factor < percent, else STALE
# FRESH if age < min
# else STALE

Here comes the question: how can any object be considered fresh when its
expiry time is < than actual time?!?!? If it's already expired how can
it be fresh!?!? Moreover what is exactly age?!? Is it the time since
last modification, I mean age = now - last-modified!?!?! And, what is
lm-factor!?

Thanks all!

Marco
Received on Thu Mar 10 2005 - 03:33:20 MST