Error page when network down

Hi,

I was trying to set Squid up so that, when we have a network outage, I
can just uncomment a line (or something else simple) and all requests
are denied [with a suitable message and not after a timeout].

I defined an ACL covering the source addresses of our internal network
and defined a special error page with deny_info. Then, with a suitably
placed 'http_access deny outage_acl', I could uncomment it to give
everyone the error message.

However, when the network was out, it appears Squid was still doing
networky things - like DNS lookups (which it could not, of course).

Has anyone any tips? Do I need to uncomment something else? Move
things around?

I don't have a spare machine to test things out on at the moment, so
I haven't got much chance to fiddle.

Thanks in advance,

  - Bob

-- 
 Bob Franklin <r.c.franklin@reading.ac.uk>     Tel. +44 (0)118 931 8432
 Systems and Communications, IT Services, The University of Reading, UK