How to block torrent downloads by squid?

Question

I am using linux (RHEL 5) server with few windows xp client machines ,

I would like to block torrent downloads at clients,

I am using squid 2.6 stable.

• How can i do this by squid ?
• Is there any other options for to do this ?

Answer 1

You can define a blacklist for different files. All you have to do is blacklist .torrent files.

But in reality you should have a decent firewall capable of blocking Bit Torrent ports... Any firewall will do this with a bit of configuration and tweaking.

If you really don't want a firewall, you could always use an IDS such as Snort to watch the traffic and notify you of any BT traffic.

Answer 2

squid is a caching proxy. But you can as Antoine suggested to block .torrent files. But this is quite useless.

What you need is a good firewall and only open up for business critical services.

Answer 3

If you want to block the torrent from being downloaded, then the following step should be performed:

1. Open terminal on the desktop of the RHEL5 Enterprise Server
2. Run vi /etc/squid/squid.conf
3. After the file opens, search for #http_access deny CONNECT !SSL_ports
4. Remove the # in front of the line then the torrent became block, if you assign the "#" sign in front of the line then its started to download from the torrent.

Answer 4

1. Block downloading of ".torrent" files and "application/x-bittorrent" content type.

2. Limit maximum concurrent connections. Bittorrent will connect hundreds of connections for better speed, so limit the maximum connections number can limit its downloading speed.