I'm trying to move from log4j 1.x to 2.x and I'm having some trouble. I was using slf4j/log4j1.2.x but am trying to get off the slf4j stuff and just use log4j.
I have a web application that uses two shared jars that have their own log4j configuration files. Previously I was able to load them using DOMConfigurator:
DOMConfigurator.configure(Loader.getResource(sContext.getInitParameter(CoreServicesListener.INIT_SYSLOGGING_FILE)));
Not sure how to do this anymore in log4j2. I've checked several resources on the web and nothing seems to be getting me to the right path. I'm hoping someone can help.
The easiest solution is to replace your custom ServletContextListener with the log4j-web module (cf. documentation).
The log4j-web module uses the servlet context parameter "log4jConfiguration", which accepts string interpolation. If for any reason you can not change the old parameter name, you can set the value of "log4jConfiguration" to ${web:initParam.old_param_name} (cf. Web Lookup).
Remark: Log4j 1.x and 2.x configuration formats are incompatible. You need to convert the configuration files before migrating.
We understand that Jetty 11 has basically changed logging from version 10 (no internal Jetty classes, moreover Jetty 11 is commited to use SLF4 as a base logging).
The problem
We have a rudimentary knowledge of SLF4J (used it before and we've even read the Jetty 11 SLF4J sources ,too), but currently we don't see any way to "teach" Jetty 11 a new logging (aka there are no "setLogging()" methods in the Jetty 11 source code as there were before).
Global (Jetty) parameters, alas, can't be our solution just yet.
The state (aka our requirements)
We have already solved the "RequestLog" outputs of Jetty, no problems there, we need the "normal" Jetty-log outputs.
We need to control (many) modules/jars etc. via a unified logging.
Our logging is simple but requires that no output happens on the console (stdout / stderr etc). In best case the logging gets an instance of an Exception/Runtime, too.
Therefore, we need to route the Jetty output from the "Jetty server" through our internal logging. Using SLF4? If there is no other way (and we see no other way up to now), gladly.
Switching back to Jetty 10, sadly, is not an option.
Could this be solved in any way we are not aware of (yet)? Any idea would be very appreciated, thank you!
The switch from Jetty logging to Slf4j was actually done in Jetty 10.0.0.
slf4j was designed for unified logging, it can capture into a single logging location implementation all of the logging events generated from libraries that use ...
slf4j API
java.util.logging API
log4j1 API
log4j2 API
commons-logging API
logback API
org.apache.juli.logging API
and if you use slf4j version 2.x series, there's even rudimentary support for capturing java.lang.System.Logger API.
With slf4j, you have 2 categories of jar files to think about.
Bridge API JARs
These are slf4j based JARs that merely capture the above logging events and route them to slf4j. You can choose 0..n of these JARs to use.
There's dozens of options here.
Here's some common ones
jcl-overs-slf4j - captures Jakarta Commons Logging events and sends to slf4j
jul-to-slf4j - captures Java Util Logging events and sends them to slf4j
log4j-over-slf4j - captures Log4j 1.x events and sends them to slf4j
log4j2-overs-slf4j - captures Log4j 2.x events and sends them to slf4j
osgi-over-slf4j - captures osgi logging bundle events and sends them to slf4j
See http://www.slf4j.org/legacy.html
Implementation Binding JAR
These are the implementation of slf4j-api, and is the final binding of all logging events, it is the thing that decides what to do with the logging event (eg: write it to disk, ignore it, send it to a logging database, etc)
You have many choices here as well, here's some common jars to pick from (pick only 1!)
logback-classic - slf4j to Logback (Eclipse Jetty group's favorite logging implementation)
slf4j-jdk14 - slf4j to Java Util Logging
slf4j-log4j12 - slf4j to Log4j 1.2.x
log4j-slf4j-impl - slf4j to Log4j 2.x (see https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/log4j-slf4j-impl/)
slfj-jcl - slf4j to Jakarta Commons Logging
jetty-slf4j-impl - Jetty 10+ implementation of the slf4j api
See: http://www.slf4j.org/manual.html#swapping
Since Jetty 10.0.x, the jetty-slf4j-impl exists, which provides an out of the box implementation that simply writes to System.err (aka STDERR) with some decent logging filtering by level in the usual jetty-logging.properties.
See https://search.maven.org/artifact/org.eclipse.jetty/jetty-slf4j-impl
Important advice
Don't use multiple binding implementations. Narrow it down to 1 binding implementation and purge all other logging implementation jars.
Don't accidentally create a loop with introducing a Bridge API Jar and a Binding Implementation JAR with the same logging technology. (eg: using binding log4j-over-slf4j and slf4j-log4j12 at the same time)
There is no "configuration" to wire up these binding or bridge jars, their mere existence in the classloader is enough to make them work. See the slf4j manual on how that works.
We have already solved the "RequestLog" outputs of Jetty, no problems there, we need the "normal" Jetty-log outputs.
Interesting, this is "solved" by actually using slf4j, as that's the only non-deprecated implementation of RequestLog.Writer in Jetty 10 and Jetty 11.
The way this works, is the Slf4jRequestLogWriter will emit events to a single named logger (the name of which you can configure in Slf4jRequestLogWriter.setLoggerName(String)) using the slf4j-api. Then it reaches the logging implementation and is routed wherever that logging configuration decides based on that logger name (file, with rolling, syslog, sent to a different system for aggregation, logstash, etc)
Did you really implement your own RequestLog.Writer instead of just using your preferred logging logging library? (libraries like logback, log4j2, log4j1, and even java.util.logging can easily create separate log files for RequestLog events).
⚠️ Note: do not use logback-access for RequestLog at this time (It does not fully support jakarta.servlets yet, and has many bugs that result in bad request log data. See open PR at https://github.com/qos-ch/logback/pull/532)
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".
We are creating a webservice which hits existing business code. A required jar which deals with logging throughout the business layer is org.ops4j.pax.logging. I have include this in the pom.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.ops4j.pax.logging</groupId>
<artifactId>pax-logging-api</artifactId>
<version>1.6.0</version>
</dependency>
This jar allows access to a particular log4j method which is used throughout the business layer.
LOGGER.debug(object, object);
We also wish to configure logging on the webservice in particular the use of appenders.
It would seem the methods required for dealing with these appenders are not available in pax-logging-api but are available in pax-logging-service.
However (and you can see where this is going) the initial logger method described above (and info, warn,.. etc methods like it) is available in pax-logging-api but is NOT available in pax-logging-service.
Whichever entry is included first in the pom file (pax-logging-api or pax-logging-service) is the jar from which the log4j instance is grabbed.
We DEFINETELY require pax-logging-api as the business code which uses this is non negotiable.
Has anyone any thoughts about how we can deal appenders which are part of the pax-logging-service?
Suppose I have a web project (war) which is using logback logging but this project has a dependency of a jar which internally uses log4j logging. What will happen in this case? Will dependency logs appear in my logback log file or they just disappear (means I wont be able to see them anywhere) or some exception?
The logs coming from your dependency won't appear in your log file unless you use a bridge to redirect calls made to log4j by calls made to your logger.
If you use logback with slf4j, you can refer to this link to have more explanation on how to do that : http://www.slf4j.org/legacy.html