Re: [BFilter-users] Signal handler request

[gypsy <gy...@is...>]

Joseph Artsimovich wrote:
> 
> On Sunday 31 August 2003 20:48, gypsy wrote:
> > I'd like to be able to
> >
> > killall -USR1 bfilter
> >
> > and have it reload /etc/bfilter/config.  Better yet, changes made to
> > ~config should be dynamic such that each request would check ~config for
> > changes before getting the requested document.  That's because I run
> > bfilter as a tsr listening on my internal interface 192.168.1.254:8080
> > and I may want to proxy that through privoxy (which listens on :8118)
> > rather than passing the request on to Apache directly.
> Well, the gui version backends actually do this check before each request.
> The problem with the standalone version is that backends don't communicate
> with the master process in any way, nor do they read config themselves.
> It should not be a problem to reread the config in the master process, but
> then the current backends won't catch the changes until the client connection
> is closed.
OK.  I have neither need nor desire for GUI.

> > I am confused by "next-hop".  What is its purpose/what does it do?
> > Could we please have comments in ~config and/or docs on sourceforge?
> Hop is basically a way from one proxy (or a client or a sever) to another.
Erm.  I think you left out a critical phrase or word in the above line.

My setup works with next-hop commented and the following 3 lines
properly configured, but I STILL have no clue what next-hop is for <g>.

Since it may be pertinent, here is my setup:
Apache is set up to proxy for specified users in 192.168.1.0/24
The computers on 192.168.1 proxy bfilter which is listening on
192.168.1.254:8080
BFilter passes the requests on to Apache, which has 'Listen 80' in
httpd.conf
Thus:
  [global]
  listen_address = 192.168.1.254:8080

  [forwarding]
  use_proxy = yes
  proxy_host = 192.168.1.254
  proxy_port = 80

Three of the computers using bfilter are Linux boxes, 16 are Windows
(various flavors).  As of today, I think that privoxy won't be used any
more.

> > with that.  I had to compile it on a pre 9.0 version of Slackware
> > because it won't compile under gcc 3.2.2 (but then you warned me it
> > probably wouldn't); it would be nicer if something could be done to get
> > gcc 3.x to work.
> Compiles fine on gcc 3.2.3 here.  I think it was a problem with a specific
> version of bfilter.
OK.  I have a long long error in 3.2.3 that I have not applied the fix
for, so I'm still using 3.2.2.  I guess it is time to take care of
3.2.3's "long long" bug.  I'm compiling bfilter-0.8.2 so I think the
problem is in gcc, not in "a specific version of bfilter".  When I have
a working 3.2.3 I'll let you know what happens.
 
> > Q:  Does rules.local override or supplement rules?  IOW, if rules.local
> > is empty, does rules still apply?
> It supplements them.  Here is what it does exactly:
> 1. Read a rule block from rules.local.
> 2. Fill the absent parameters with defaults from rules.local (normally there
> are no defaults there, unless you want to override global defaults).
> 3. If rules contains a block with the same pattern, use this block to fill the
> parameters which are still absent.
> 4. Fill the absent parameters with defaults from rules.
> 5. Fill the absent parameters with the hardcoded defaults.
Beautiful.  Please put this just as you wrote it in the top of
rules.local.

> > If there is a bash/perl/Etc. guru out there who wants to write a
> > conversion program that reads privoxy's *.action files and writes
> > rules.local, that would be A Very Good Thing for a ~/contrib directory
> > (hint hint).
> Is there a need in that?  My rules.local is currently empty and I see ads so
> rarely that I don't bother to create rules for them.
Here's what I found, and it should be in the docs somewhere:  Empty the
browser's cache before you complain about things that bfilter misses ;) 
In other words, the ads that got past bfilter were those still in
Netscape's cache, which I didn't think of because privoxy was blocking
them.  So, the short answer to your question is, "probably not!".  After
clearing the cache, there are no more ads - only empty boxes where they
would be.

One more question if I may.  It appears that bfilter works better with
javascript turned on than with it off.  Is that my imagination?  (I
always surf with js off, turning it on only when something I really want
fails.)

gypsy