This did it :-) Using the following command provided by Gavin: $ sudo chown proxy.proxy /var/spool/squid/ (but changing 'proxy.proxy' to 'squid.squid') changed the ownership, then using the command provided by Christopher: $ sudo /etc/init.d/squid start simply worked. Thanks Gents! David <div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Christopher Chan <<a href="mailto:christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk">christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">David Groos wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> Thanks Christopher and Gavin<div class="im"> On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 1:14 AM, Christopher Chan <<a href="mailto:christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk" target="_blank">christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk</a> <mailto:<a href="mailto:christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk" target="_blank">christopher.chan@bradbury.edu.hk</a>>> wrote: Hello David, What is the setting of cache_effective_user cache_effective_user squid cache_effective_group squid </div></blockquote> That is your problem right there. Default user and group is proxy and Kubuntu is setup for that which is why you find /var/spool/squid owned by proxy. You can either comment out this setting or change the ownership of /var/spool/squid. cheers, Christopher </blockquote></div>