Logging Tomcat6 on Ubuntu - java

Im using ubuntu and tomcat6 for my server. When im calling a servlet or a jsp page, the "logger" (System.out.println()) logs into the syslog of the server /var/log/syslog. How can i change this, that the server will write in a own log file like the catalina.out?
The problem is that there are no line breaks in my syslog (i used \n in the system.out), so it looks really "dirty".

You would want to look into log4j
http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/manual.html
and set up a log4j.properties that will do what you want it to do.
Generally, you do not want to use System.out.println().. everything should go through log4j. So like
logger.debug("whatever i am debugging");
and
logger.warn("danger!");
This way you can change your log4j level and turn off debugging spam, without having to remove it from your code.

Several ways:
Change the destination of the stdout using System#setOut() and eventually also the stderr.
System.setOut(new PrintStream(new File("/new.log")));
This is however not recommended. Don't do it. Use a logger.
Configure the webapp context to swallow the output. Set the swallowOutput of the <Context> element to true. This will redirect all stdout/stderr to Tomcat's logfile.
<Context swallowOutput="true">
Still not really recommended. Using stdout/stderr instead of logger is a poor practice. Also, this will clutter Tomcat's logfile with webapp-specific logs. But if this is exactly what you're after...
Replace all stdout/stderr calls by a fullworthy logger like the (currently legacy) log4j or its successor slf4j which gives you a high degree of freedom in configuring the logged information, logging destination, logging format, etcetera.

Related

How to configure IBM WAS SystemOut logging to customize logging for each application?

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.

How to disable capture of std-out in JBoss?

Using JBoss EAP 6.4 (AS 7.x I guess).
By default, JBoss' logging service is capturing all application output to stdout (and presumably stderr) and wrapping it in its own log4j-based logs. When running locally I want to totally disable this (annoying) feature1, but the references I've found on the Interwebs all either don't work or are for older versions of JBoss. I've tried excluding every possible logging framework in the jboss-deployment-structure configuration, passing -Dorg.jboss.logging.per-deployment=false as a system property, but still JBoss captures stdout.
How can I disable it in this version of JBoss?
[1] If you must know the reason, it's because we have detailed logging configuration via logback and when running locally in an IDE want to be able to see and control that log output in the console without JBoss' logging service getting in the way.
It's hard-coded in the entry points to capture stdout and stderr. This is done so both streams are written to the defined log handlers. Because of this there is no real clean way around it. However there are ways to make it at least look a little better.
You can create a new console-handler and define a stdout logger to ensure only the simple message is written though.
Here are some CLI commands to configure a logger named stdout to just print the message it receives.
/subsystem=logging/pattern-formatter=plain-formatter:add(pattern="%s")
/subsystem=logging/console-handler=plain-console:add(autoflush=true, target=System.out, named-formatter=plain-formatter)
/subsystem=logging/logger=stdout:add(use-parent-handlers=false, handlers=[plain-console])
Note: It could be my test logback.xml configuration, but I had to use a pattern of %s%n for the plain-formatter.
The only other option I can think of would be to write your own logback ConsoleAppender that creates an output stream based on java.io.FileOutputStream.out rather than using System.out.

Redirecting library's SLF4J logging output to my program's java.util.logging output

I couldn't figure out from searching Stackoverflow/Google if this has been answered or if it's even possible to do. I've only found this
https://mina.apache.org/mina-project/userguide/ch12-logging-filter/ch12-logging-filter.html which suggests that "Once configured properly, you can continue to configure the actual logging framework you chose (e.g. modifying log4j.properties)." But I didn't know how to do that for my specific java.util.logging setup, described below.
Setup:
I have a program that uses java.util.logging to output logging to FileHandler and ConsoleHandler. I'm using the Apache SSHD library in my program, from which I am including only [sshd-core-0.14.0.jar, slf4j-api-1.6.4.jar, slf4j-jdk14-1.6.4.jar] specifically.
Goal:
Logging from SSHD is currently output to the console, but not to my log file. I want to configure SSHD to route its logging to my file and/or console as I specify from within my program.
Is this even possible? Do I need to switch to another logging mechanism? I didn't think logging configuration would be this complicated and take up a not insignificant amount of time/effort.

SLF4J Message Format In WebSphere App Server

So, I'm beating my head against the wall with logging again. I know, how complex can it be? Well, let's see...
I'm starting a new project to be run on WebSphere Application Server 6.1 (actually Portal Server 6.1, but it's WAS 6.1 under the hood - whatever). I usually use java.util.logging for my WAS projects and everything is fine. This customer is a SLF4J fan and wants to use that. Fair enough, sounds easy.
So, I deploy slf4j-api-1.5.8.jar and slf4j-jdk14-1.5.8.jar in my WEB-INF/lib directory. In my code I do a --
// These classes are coming from org.slf4j.*
private static Logger log = LoggerFactory.getLogger(MyClass.class);
...
log.debug("This is a log message");
As expected I get an entry in the SystemOut.log. However, it's the format of that message that I can't figure out. A sample would be --
[12/15/09 15:43:15:071 EST] 00000042 MyClass D com.example.MyClass This is a log message
Let me explain what's in that sample log entry. I assume everything to the left of com.example.MyClass is coming from the j.u.l formatter. Everything to the right of it is what I included in my log.debug(). So, who's adding the com.example.MyClass? Only thing I can think is that SLF4J is adding it before it passes the message through to the underlying j.u.l.
It's the com.example.MyClass part that's irritating me. I don't want that included in the SLF4J-generated log message. The class name is already included, so it's extra fluff that's not needed. Plus, the real package names are quite long and their inclusion just pushes the real meat of the log entry too far off to the right.
When I use just plain java.util.loggging, the log entry is exactly the same except that the "com.example.MyClass" piece is not included. Exactly as I want!
So, the question is - how can I get rid of this extra class name entry in the log messages generated via SLF4J under WAS?
Thanks!
You bind slf4j to java.util.logging which most likely is configured inside WebSphere as it doesn't look like the standard message format.
I do not know WebSphere, but you may get a better result by telling slf4j to bind to something else. Would the slf4j-simple backend do? It just prints out info-or-higher messages instead of invoking java.util.logging.
Basically you want to configure the layout of the logging messages produced by the underlying logging mechanism.
SLF4J does not actually perform the logging, but delegates to other logging systems (log4j, JUL, etc) based on how you set it up.
So if you are binding SLF4J with JUL, then I think the real question you are asking is either one of
Setting the Formatter of a Logger Handler
Creating a Custom Formatter for a Logger Handler

Logging Java web applications?

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.

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