We have a common service module which uses legacy log4J for logging. We need to use this module as dependency in a new Spring Boot application. In new application we are trying to set up SLF4J-Logback as logging framework which is recommended as Log4J is old however we are observing that the log messages are going to different log files. I think this is happening because our common module uses log4j while we are using logback in new module. Now which approach should we use ? Having log messages in two different files will make it difficult to read and debug issues. Shall i configure log4J and logback to use same file ? Is that safe ? Or we use log4j in new application as well and drop logback ?
I would strongly recommend that you use a logging facade, what you already do with SLF4J.
That means that logback in combination with SLF4J is a perfect choice. Thereby SLF4J severs as a simple facade for various logging frameworks. It allows to redirect log messages from legacy logging frameworks to behave as if they were made to the SLF4J API instead.
Adding the appropriate briding module (log4j-over-slf4j) to your classpath, should be everything you have to do for "installation".
I have 4 appllications (ear) on my WAS. I need them to write in SystemOut.log some sign. I.e each application must write to log file its own sign. For example:
[16.01.17 3:50:05:592 GMT+05:00] ADMIN 000005e0 SubsystemMess I com.docflow.core.integration.jms.SubsystemMessageListener onMessage_aroundBody0 Subsystem integration message ID:f5392a5ec3b3f41502095b00110a134f0000000000000001 of type DP_EKS_BANK_GUARANTEE_RECEIVED process finished
Here ADMIN is sign of the application.
How i can do that?
It's not possible to adjust the default logging format in this way. Your options would be to use java.util.logging.Logger with a particular name (to replace the "SubsystemMess" part) or to use a separate logging package and configure it to log to a separate file.
Look at log4j and configuring each app's log4j to go to a different file.
Log4j's file appender can be configured to also include timestamp and more.
The only catch is you can't configure it from WAS's admin console then.
Note that java.util.Logger writes to the trace.log. If you use a different logger name, it will list as such in the same trace.log file. Upside is you can now configure it from the admin console.
One potential solution could be to switch to HPEL logging. Then you could query log entries for your given application using logviewer, like:
logViewer.sh -includeExtensions appName=PlantsByWebSphere
I know that it is not exactly what you are looking for, but maybe it will be sufficient for your needs.
I just started playing with it with ApacheKafka. I set the whole thing up and now I am trying to introduce Kafka sending logs via log appender in already existing Java application. This application is using Logback as a logger library. So, I guess, that makes me impossible to use kafka.producer.KafkaLog4jAppender? There are not compatible? I am getting IncompatibleClassException. Is there maybe other solution? Thanks a lot!!
You can use logback-kafka appender available.
Check this link
This is a good Logback Appender that sends log messages to Kafka. It has a powerful, light-weight approach that allows you to make full use of the latest Kafka Producer.
I have a web application, which uses log4j and slf4j as facade for logging. Logging is configured not from log4j.properties file, but from Java code.
Application is running on three different machines using Websphere Application Server.
Issue is that on two instances logging works as expected. But on the third one nothing is written in my logfile. Output goes to SystemErr.log instead (there are messages of ERROR and INFO levels).
Initially I thought that something is with Websphere server configuration, but later I found this link http://www.webagesolutions.com/knowledgebase/waskb/waskb004/ which says that such situation can be when log4j.properties can not be read.
But I am not using property file for this. And configuration form Java works OK on other two instances.
Any ideas what can be the issue?
Thank you in advance!
Please make sure that no alternative slf4j binding (such as simple) exists on the CLASSPATH.
I am planning to implement logging into a web application that I am currently working on but I am struggling with some of the details. What is the best way to go about logging a Java web application?
Specifically;
Where does the configuration file go in .war package file?
Where do people log to, relative or absolute path flat file, or a database?
Does Log4J logging go directly into the application server log file automatically or is that something you have to set up? In this case I am using Tomcat, but I often use Jrun.
Any other gotchas I should be aware of for web application logging?
Currently I am using Log4J but I imagine that the best practices would apply universally to all logging implementations.
EDIT:
One addition to the questions up top.
Where do you initilize the log
configuration?
In a traditional app, I do this at the entry point;
DOMConfigurator.configureAndWatch("log4j.xml");
What would the web application equivalent be?
I would recommend you to use SLF4J. This is simple logging facade which supports most of popular logging systems (Log4j, commons-logging, Java Logging API and Logback).
Using it, you will able to replace your underline logging system to any other, by simple CLASSPATH update.
The other benefit of SLF4J are parameterized calls, which reduces ugly logging code.
Actually, they recommends to use SLF4J with Logback.
Logback is a successor of Log4J. And it was designed by the same author.
Where does the configuration file go in .war package file?
Root of the classpath.
Where do people log to, relative or absolute path flat file, or a database?
Depends on the need. It's always better to use relative paths. Databases are good if you implement another application which will fetch logs from it and send them using email/sms
Does Log4J logging go directly into the application server log file automatically or is that something you have to set up? In this case I am using Tomcat, but I often use Jrun.
If you use Console appender, yes, it's going to be logged in your servlet container log file.
Any other gotchas I should be aware of for web application logging?
If you are logging from different threads use logback, it's thread-safe and it exposes parameterized log messages.
Logging to a DB adds another failure point. We had a situation where the prod servers logged to a DB and someone ran an expensive query on that DB that slowed it so much that the prod servers got very, very slow. Logging to a file can cause issues if you run out of space but it seems less likely to slow down the whole app.
I place my configuration on the default package: src/
and log to files using the ${catalina.home} system property:
log4j.appender.???.file=${catalina.home}/logs/system.log
It might be a good idea to place the config file somewhere where an admin can modify it without rebuilding your web app (e.g., so they can turn on detailed logging without waking you up in the middle of the night).
Unfortunately, there's no "official" way for locating externalized resources from a web app (correct me if I'm wrong). The most common way of doing it I've seen is to look through the directories in the classpath.
The excellent paper How to Do Application Logging Right has a bunch of gotchas.
I believe that your other questions have been answered by other people on this page.
I also recommend that you use SLF4J.
One last thing: having speakable representations of objects can save some time.
I recommend to call log API (log4j) via slf4j. Even if you use log4j, web container or depending modules may use different log API such as Java.util.logging or Jakarta commons logging. Slf4j provides bridge modules that redirect them to slf4j API. As a result, all log messages are written by log4j in that case.
put the log4j in the container (server) and create proper appenders per application
relative to server path, but that depends on your needs
we use appenders which log to different files, depends on your needs, e.g. one file for hibernate info/statistics, one for application only, etc.
don't log to much, it slows the application down
Personally I put the log4j.properties in the WEB-INF directory and use an init servlet with the following code :
public class InitServlet extends javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet implements javax.servlet.Servlet {
private static final String LOG4J_FILE = "WEB-INF/log4j.properties";
public InitServlet() {
super();
}
#Override
public void init() throws ServletException {
super.init();
PropertyConfigurator.configure(getServletContext().getRealPath(LOG4J_FILE));
LogFactory.getLog(InitServlet.class).info("LOG 4J configured");
}
}
Where does the configuration file go in .war package file?
At the root of the classpath but... Don't put the configuration file in the war package. You don't want to repackage and redeploy the application if you change the logging configuration, do you ? A better practice would be to put the configuration file somewhere in the classpath outside the war.
Where do people log to, relative or absolute path flat file, or a database?
I usually log to the file system on a separate partition (log files can grow very fast and should never block the application or the operating system if they become too big). I use most of time an absolute path based on the following model: /var/projects/<PROJECT_NAME>/<PRODUCT>/<CLUSTER_NAME>/logs/<INSTANCE_NAME>.log where <PROJECT_NAME> is the project name, <PRODUCT> can be Apache, Tomcat, Weblogic,..., <CLUSTER_NAME> the name of the cluster and <INSTANCE_NAME> the name of the instance inside the cluster. Logging to the file system is faster than in a database. The drawback is that logs aren't centralized if you are using several instances and physical machines. But merging can easily be done with a script.
Does Log4J logging go directly into the application server log file automatically or is that something you have to set up? In this case I am using Tomcat, but I often use Jrun.
Application server logs are application server logs, not application logs. Don't write to them but set up a logger tool (e.g. log4j) and write to application logs (understand dedicated).
Any other gotchas I should be aware of for web application logging?
If you are using log4j, don't forget to use the isDebugEnabled() before to log:
if(logger.isDebugEnabled()) {
logger.debug("Bla Bla Bla");
}
Where does the configuration file go in .war package file?
Usually, I do not place any logging configuration into the application, rather leaving that to the appserver admins to configure logging server-wide. In the rare cases I want the log4j configuration deployed with a webapp, WEB-INF is the usual path.
Where do people log to, relative or absolute path flat file, or a database?
Again, depends on appserver settings. One common log file for a appserver and rotating on a daily basis is the usual setup. If there are any app-specific needs, the admin may configure a separate logfile for an app (distinguished by package / class names).
Does Log4J logging go directly into the application server log file automatically or is that something you have to set up? In this case I am using Tomcat, but I often use Jrun.
See above. For tomcat used for development purposes, I'd just look for its logging (log4j) configuration and add app-specific specific there.
Any other gotchas I should be aware of for web application logging?
Performance. Limit the ,log level to a minimum (i.e. WARN or ERROR) once you go live. Use
if (log.isDebugEnabled()) { log.debug("..."); } and alike constructs in your code.
Note that if you just need a bit of logging, the servlet standard specifies that you can get the ServletContext and use the log methods there. That is the generic servlet equivalent of System.out.println.