Separating the logging-output of libraries in tomcat/shared

Hey everybody, just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class. Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B]. The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166 I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;) Thanks a lot, Achim

Hello Achim, Thank you for your message. The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side. As far as I can see, you have two options: 1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them) If 1) is not an option, there is: 2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context. Let me know if the above does not make sense. [1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin... On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim

Hey Ceki, thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue. So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work. greetz, achim Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim,
Thank you for your message.
The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side.
As far as I can see, you have two options:
1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them)
If 1) is not an option, there is:
2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context.
Let me know if the above does not make sense.
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin...
On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user

Can't you sift on Thread.currentThread.getContextClassLoader()? That should be different per webapp. On 1 Mar 2010, at 08:38, Achim Wiedemann <awn@inxmail.de> wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim, Thank you for your message. The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side. As far as I can see, you have two options: 1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them) If 1) is not an option, there is: 2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context. Let me know if the above does not make sense. [1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin... On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user

In my opinion, the current thread class loader is too low level to be of use. Retrieving values from JNDI is a bit safer (we don't have to keep around references to class loaders) and also allows us set/get context names. On 01/03/2010 2:00 PM, Robert Elliot wrote:
Can't you sift on Thread.currentThread.getContextClassLoader()? That should be different per webapp.
On 1 Mar 2010, at 08:38, Achim Wiedemann <awn@inxmail.de> wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim, Thank you for your message. The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side. As far as I can see, you have two options: 1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them) If 1) is not an option, there is: 2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context. Let me know if the above does not make sense. [1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin... On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user

You are right. ContextBasedDiscriminator will not help you because the context name is retreived from the LoggingEvent which ultimately gets its value from the calling logger. If the calling logger is attached to the wrong context, ContextBasedDiscriminator will give you the wrong context name. Sorry for misleading you. However, I've written a new discriminator which should work assuming you have installed ContextJNDISelector as explained in http://logback.qos.ch/manual/loggingSeparation.html JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator can be found at http://github.com/ceki/logback/blob/90e50c/logback-classic/src/main/java/ch/... or the same in tiny-speak http://tinyurl.com/yb6pdj2 Getting values from JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator, SiftingAppender will get the correct context name and things should work much better. Give it a try. On 01/03/2010 9:38 AM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim,
Thank you for your message.
The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side.
As far as I can see, you have two options:
1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them)
If 1) is not an option, there is:
2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context.
Let me know if the above does not make sense.
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin...
On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
_______________________________________________ Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user

Dear Robert and Ceki, thanks for your replies. I'll check out your suggestions as soon as I can get to it. Of course, I'll let you know how things turned out. :) greetz, achim Ceki Gülcü schrieb:
You are right. ContextBasedDiscriminator will not help you because the context name is retreived from the LoggingEvent which ultimately gets its value from the calling logger. If the calling logger is attached to the wrong context, ContextBasedDiscriminator will give you the wrong context name. Sorry for misleading you.
However, I've written a new discriminator which should work assuming you have installed ContextJNDISelector as explained in
http://logback.qos.ch/manual/loggingSeparation.html
JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator can be found at
http://github.com/ceki/logback/blob/90e50c/logback-classic/src/main/java/ch/...
or the same in tiny-speak
Getting values from JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator, SiftingAppender will get the correct context name and things should work much better. Give it a try.
On 01/03/2010 9:38 AM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim,
Thank you for your message.
The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side.
As far as I can see, you have two options:
1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them)
If 1) is not an option, there is:
2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context.
Let me know if the above does not make sense.
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin...
On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
_______________________________________________ Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
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Hi Ceki, I just implemented your suggestion and it works like a charm. :) So it seems like there's a workaround for LBLCLASSIC-166 with your new discriminator-class now. Great work and thanks a lot! By the way: Is there any possibility to have different logging-levels for the nested appenders of a SiftingAppender? greetz, achim Ceki Gülcü schrieb:
You are right. ContextBasedDiscriminator will not help you because the context name is retreived from the LoggingEvent which ultimately gets its value from the calling logger. If the calling logger is attached to the wrong context, ContextBasedDiscriminator will give you the wrong context name. Sorry for misleading you.
However, I've written a new discriminator which should work assuming you have installed ContextJNDISelector as explained in
http://logback.qos.ch/manual/loggingSeparation.html
JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator can be found at
http://github.com/ceki/logback/blob/90e50c/logback-classic/src/main/java/ch/...
or the same in tiny-speak
Getting values from JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator, SiftingAppender will get the correct context name and things should work much better. Give it a try.
On 01/03/2010 9:38 AM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim,
Thank you for your message.
The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side.
As far as I can see, you have two options:
1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them)
If 1) is not an option, there is:
2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context.
Let me know if the above does not make sense.
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin...
On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
_______________________________________________ Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
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I think the short answer is yes. The nested appenders will have the same configuration differentiated by the value returned by the discriminator. You could add properties to the logger context and since logger context properties are seen as variables, you could in principle use the value of the property to filter events. Here is an example using a ThresholdFilter and the variable myLevel with a default substitution value (see [1]). <appender name="SIFT" class="ch.qos.logback.classic.sift.SiftingAppender"> <discriminator class="ch.qos.logback.classic.sift.JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator"> <Key>context</Key> <DefaultValue>unknown</DefaultValue> </discriminator> <sift> <appender name="FILE-${context}" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender"> <File>${context}.log</File> <Append>true</Append> <filter class="ch.qos.logback.classic.filter.ThresholdFilter"> <level>${myLevel:-DEBUG}</level> </filter> <layout> <pattern>%d [%thread] %level %mdc %logger{35} - %msg%n</pattern> </layout> </appender> </sift> </appender> You could set the myLevel property at the start of each application. Here is the sample code for web-app A: LoggerContext lc = (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory(); lc.putProperty("myLevel", some level value as appropriate for web-app A); For web-app B, the code is similar: LoggerContext lc = (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory(); lc.putProperty("myLevel", some level value as appropriate for web-app B); You need to make sure that the "myLevel" property is set before the logger context is configured which means that you need to override default logback configuration by invoking joran directly. Search for "Invoking JoranConfigurator directly" in [2]. The code then becomes: LoggerContext lc = (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory(); JoranConfigurator configurator = new JoranConfigurator(); configurator.setContext(lc); // the context was probably already configured by default configuration // rules lc.reset(); lc.putProperty("myLevel", some level value as appropriate for the web-app); configurator.doConfigure(args[0]); HTH, [1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/configuration.html#defaultValuesForVariables [2] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/configuration.html On 02/03/2010 1:52 PM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hi Ceki,
I just implemented your suggestion and it works like a charm. :) So it seems like there's a workaround for LBLCLASSIC-166 with your new discriminator-class now. Great work and thanks a lot!
By the way: Is there any possibility to have different logging-levels for the nested appenders of a SiftingAppender?
greetz, achim
Ceki Gülcü schrieb:
You are right. ContextBasedDiscriminator will not help you because the context name is retreived from the LoggingEvent which ultimately gets its value from the calling logger. If the calling logger is attached to the wrong context, ContextBasedDiscriminator will give you the wrong context name. Sorry for misleading you.
However, I've written a new discriminator which should work assuming you have installed ContextJNDISelector as explained in
http://logback.qos.ch/manual/loggingSeparation.html
JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator can be found at
http://github.com/ceki/logback/blob/90e50c/logback-classic/src/main/java/ch/...
or the same in tiny-speak
Getting values from JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator, SiftingAppender will get the correct context name and things should work much better. Give it a try.
On 01/03/2010 9:38 AM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim,
Thank you for your message.
The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side.
As far as I can see, you have two options:
1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them)
If 1) is not an option, there is:
2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context.
Let me know if the above does not make sense.
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin...
On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
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Hi Ceki, that seems like a good idea. I'll try it out. Thanks again for taking the time. greetz, achim Ceki Gülcü schrieb:
I think the short answer is yes. The nested appenders will have the same configuration differentiated by the value returned by the discriminator. You could add properties to the logger context and since logger context properties are seen as variables, you could in principle use the value of the property to filter events. Here is an example using a ThresholdFilter and the variable myLevel with a default substitution value (see [1]).
<appender name="SIFT" class="ch.qos.logback.classic.sift.SiftingAppender"> <discriminator class="ch.qos.logback.classic.sift.JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator"> <Key>context</Key> <DefaultValue>unknown</DefaultValue> </discriminator> <sift> <appender name="FILE-${context}" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender"> <File>${context}.log</File> <Append>true</Append> <filter class="ch.qos.logback.classic.filter.ThresholdFilter"> <level>${myLevel:-DEBUG}</level> </filter> <layout> <pattern>%d [%thread] %level %mdc %logger{35} - %msg%n</pattern> </layout> </appender> </sift> </appender>
You could set the myLevel property at the start of each application. Here is the sample code for web-app A:
LoggerContext lc = (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory(); lc.putProperty("myLevel", some level value as appropriate for web-app A);
For web-app B, the code is similar:
LoggerContext lc = (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory(); lc.putProperty("myLevel", some level value as appropriate for web-app B);
You need to make sure that the "myLevel" property is set before the logger context is configured which means that you need to override default logback configuration by invoking joran directly. Search for "Invoking JoranConfigurator directly" in [2]. The code then becomes:
LoggerContext lc = (LoggerContext) LoggerFactory.getILoggerFactory();
JoranConfigurator configurator = new JoranConfigurator(); configurator.setContext(lc); // the context was probably already configured by default configuration // rules lc.reset(); lc.putProperty("myLevel", some level value as appropriate for the web-app); configurator.doConfigure(args[0]);
HTH,
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/configuration.html#defaultValuesForVariables [2] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/configuration.html
On 02/03/2010 1:52 PM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hi Ceki,
I just implemented your suggestion and it works like a charm. :) So it seems like there's a workaround for LBLCLASSIC-166 with your new discriminator-class now. Great work and thanks a lot!
By the way: Is there any possibility to have different logging-levels for the nested appenders of a SiftingAppender?
greetz, achim
Ceki Gülcü schrieb:
You are right. ContextBasedDiscriminator will not help you because the context name is retreived from the LoggingEvent which ultimately gets its value from the calling logger. If the calling logger is attached to the wrong context, ContextBasedDiscriminator will give you the wrong context name. Sorry for misleading you.
However, I've written a new discriminator which should work assuming you have installed ContextJNDISelector as explained in
http://logback.qos.ch/manual/loggingSeparation.html
JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator can be found at
http://github.com/ceki/logback/blob/90e50c/logback-classic/src/main/java/ch/...
or the same in tiny-speak
Getting values from JNDIBasedContextDiscriminator, SiftingAppender will get the correct context name and things should work much better. Give it a try.
On 01/03/2010 9:38 AM, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey Ceki,
thanks for your fast reply. I tested your tip with the SiftingAppender, but couldn't see how this gets me further compared to the logging-separation described in Ch8 of the manual (separation via JNDIContextSelector). The problem is still the same: The context of the logger, once initialized, remains the same in shared libraries. Since SiftingAppender has to sieve based on some criteria (in my case the context), it also can't solve this issue.
So I see, as you already stated, it's not possible to get this scenario to work. However, thanks for your time and all your work.
greetz, achim
Ceki Gulcu schrieb:
Hello Achim,
Thank you for your message.
The only way to solve this issue transparently and perfectly would be to introduce another level of indirection inside loggers so that each logger-shell somehow delegate work to an inner logger attached to the appropriate context. This is quite a difficult problem technically and would generate significant computational overhead. I don't see the problem fixed via such indirection any time soon. Read, as a logback user, don't expect this problem to be solved without a little work on your side.
As far as I can see, you have two options:
1) move shared classes whose loggers you care about to the web-app (unshare them)
If 1) is not an option, there is:
2) Use a single shared logback.xml file with separation done by SiftingAppender [1] using the context as separation criteria [2]. In conjunction with prudent mode of FileAppender, you will be able to separate logging by context.
Let me know if the above does not make sense.
[1] http://logback.qos.ch/manual/appenders.html#SiftingAppender [2] http://logback.qos.ch/xref/ch/qos/logback/classic/sift/ContextBasedDiscrimin...
On 26.02.2010 08:21, Achim Wiedemann wrote:
Hey everybody,
just wanted to port our application from commons-logging / log4j to slf4j / logback. Unfortunately I stumbled upon some problems when separating the logging-output from different webapps (using the JNDIContextSelector). As long as you only use logging from classes inside the webapp, everything works fine. But as soon as you've got classes in tomcat/shared which use logging, you run into trouble: All logging output of the shared classes (e.g. Spring) are directed to the logger-context of the webapp which first loads the (shared) class.
Example: Let's say you've got webbapp [A], webbapp [B], and Spring in tomcat/shared. Now both webapps use Spring. If webapp [B] first accesses any classes of Spring, all output of Spring will be directed to the log-file of [B], no matter from which webapp Spring is used. This is because static Logger references are used in Spring (which is commonplace) and are initialized with the context of webapp [B].
The issue is already described very well in the logback JIRA: http://jira.qos.ch/browse/LBCLASSIC-166
I wondered if anyone can make a suggestion how to deal with this. Any advice, tricks or magic is welcome. ;)
Thanks a lot, Achim
Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
_______________________________________________ Logback-user mailing list Logback-user@qos.ch http://qos.ch/mailman/listinfo/logback-user
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participants (4)
-
Achim Wiedemann
-
Ceki Gulcu
-
Ceki Gülcü
-
Robert Elliot