Make squid (or tinyproxy) return cache EVERYTHING and return hits on Internet outage

Question

I am wondering how to configure squid (or tinyproxy) to cache EVERYTHING and return HTTP 200 hits, even on Internet outage or if original source is 404?

Basically, I want squid to look in the cache and return whatever it finds there.

I have read the config files for each. Tiny does not seem very configurable at all, and while squid has lots of options, I could not find the option to return hits even if the original site is offline or the link 404.

Answer 1

Squid has the option offline_mode which will always serve content from cache, if it is present there.

It is neither a safe general purpose option, nor a recommended, but can be useful in some occasions. But expect some odd web browsing experiences.