The Apache Tomcat 5.5 Servlet/JSP ContainerLogging in Tomcat | ![](./../images/void.gif) |
Introduction |
Tomcat 5.5 uses
Commons Logging
throughout its internal code allowing the
developer to choose a logging configuration that suits their needs, e.g
java.util.logging or
Log4J.
Commons Logging provides Tomcat the ability to log
hierarchially across various log levels without needing to rely on a particular
logging implementation.
An important consequence for Tomcat 5.5 is that the <Logger> element found in
previous versions to create a localhost_log is no longer a valid nested element
of <Context>. Instead, the default Tomcat configuration will use java.util.logging.
If the developer wishes to collect detailed internal Tomcat logging (i.e what is happening
within the Tomcat engine), then they should configure a logging system such as java.util.logging
or log4j as detailed next.
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log4j |
Tomcat 5.5 has done away with localhost_log which you may be familiar with
as the runtime exception/stack trace log. These types of error are usually thrown
by uncaught exceptions, but are still valuable to the developer. They can now be
found in the stdout log.
If you need to setup cross-context detailed logging from within Tomcat's code,
then you can use a simple log4j configuration. Note that this logging van be very
verbose depending on the log level you chose to use. Note also that a log4j logging
configuration is not going to produce stack trace type logging: those stack traces
are output to stdout as discussed above.
Follow the following steps to setup a file named tomcat.log that has internal
Tomcat logging output to it:
- Create a file called log4j.properties with the following content
and save it into common/classes.
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log4j.rootLogger=debug, R
log4j.appender.R=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.R.File=${catalina.home}/logs/tomcat.log
log4j.appender.R.MaxFileSize=10MB
log4j.appender.R.MaxBackupIndex=10
log4j.appender.R.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%p %t %c - %m%n
log4j.logger.org.apache.catalina=DEBUG, R
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- Download Log4J
(v1.2 or later) and place the log4j jar in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.
-
Download Commons Logging and place the commons-logging.jar
(not commons-logging-api.jar) in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib with
the log4j jar.
- Start Tomcat
This log4j configuration sets up a file called tomcat.log in your
Tomcat logs folder with a maximum file size of 10MB and
up to 10 backups. DEBUG level is specified which will result in the
most verbose output from Tomcat.
You can (and should) be more picky about which packages to include
in the logging. Tomcat 5.5 uses defines loggers by Engine and Host names.
For example, for a default Catalina localhost log, add this to the
end of the log4j.properties above. Note that there are known issues with
using this naming convention (with square brackets) in log4j XML based
configuration files, so we recommend you use a properties file as described
until a future version of log4j allows this convention.
- log4j.logger.org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost]=DEBUG, R
- log4j.logger.org.apache.catalina.core=DEBUG, R
- log4j.logger.org.apache.catalina.session=DEBUG, R
Be warned a level of DEBUG will produce megabytes of logging and slow startup
of Tomcat. This level should be used sparingly when debugging of internal Tomcat
operations is required.
Your web applications should certainly use their own log4j configuration.
This is valid with the above configuration. You would place a similar log4j.properties
file in your web application's WEB-INF/classes folder, and log4j1.2.8.jar into
WEB-INF/lib. Then specify your package level logging. This is a basic setup of log4j
which does *not* require Commons-Logging,
and you should consult the
log4j documentation
for more options. This page is intended only as a bootstrapping guide.
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java.util.logging |
In order to configure JDK logging you should have JDK 1.4+. Tomcat 5.5 is intended for
JDK 5.0 or later, but can be run on JDK 1.4 using a compatibility package.
The default implemenatation of java.util.logging provided in the JDK is too limited to be
useful. A limitation of JDK Logging appears to be the inability to have per-web application logging,
as the configuration is per-VM. As a result, Tomcat will, in the default configuration,
replace the default LogManager implementation with a container friendly implementation
called JULI, which addresses these shortcomings. It supports the same configuration mechanisms
as the standard JDK java.util.logging, using either a programmatic approach, or properties
files. The main difference is that per-classloader properties files can be set (which enables easy
redeployment friendly webapp configuration), and the properties files support slightly extended
constructs which allows more freedom for defining handlers and assigning them to loggers.
JULI is enabled by default in Tomcat 5.5, and supports per classloader configuration, in addition to
the regular global java.util.logging configuration. This means that logging can be configured at
the following layers:
- In the JDK's logging.properties file. Check
your JAVA_HOME environment setting to see which JDK Tomcat is using (or maybe JRE 5.0 as Tomcat
can now run on a JRE from version 5.5). The file will be in
$JAVA_HOME/jre/lib .
Alternately, it can also use a global configuration file located elsewhere by using the
system property java.util.logging.config.file , or programmatic configuration using
java.util.logging.config.class .
- In each classloader using a logging.properties file. This means that it is possible to have a
configuration for the Tomcat core, as well as separate configurations for each webapps which will
have the same lifecycle as the webapps.
The default logging.properties specifies a ConsoleHandler for routing logging to stdout and
also a FileHandler. A handler's log level threshold can be set using SEVERE, CONFIG, INFO,
WARN, FINE, FINEST or ALL. The logging.properties shipped with JDK is set to INFO. You
can also target specific packages to collect logging from and specify a level. Here is how
you would set debugging from Tomcat. You would need to ensure the ConsoleHandler's level is also
set to collect this threshold, so FINEST or ALL should be set. Please refer to Sun's java.util.logging
documentation for the complete details.
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The configuration used by JULI is extremely similar, but uses a few extensions to allow better
flexibility in assigning loggers. The main differences are:
- A prefix may be added to handler names, so that multiple handlers of a single class may be
instantiated. A prefix is a String which starts with a digit, and ends with '.'. For example,
22foobar. is a valid prefix.
- As in Java 5.0, loggers can define a list of handlers using the
loggerName.handlers
property.
- By default, loggers will not delegate to their parent if they have associated handlers. This
may be changed per logger using the
loggerName.useParentHandlers property, which accepts
a boolean value.
- The root logger can define its set of handlers using a
.handlers property.
- System property replacement for property values which start with ${sytstemPropertyName}.
Example logging.properties file to be placed in common/classes:
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handlers = 1catalina.org.apache.juli.FileHandler, 2localhost.org.apache.juli.FileHandler, \
3manager.org.apache.juli.FileHandler, 4admin.org.apache.juli.FileHandler, \
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler
.handlers = 1catalina.org.apache.juli.FileHandler, java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler
############################################################
# Handler specific properties.
# Describes specific configuration info for Handlers.
############################################################
1catalina.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.level = FINE
1catalina.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.directory = ${catalina.base}/logs
1catalina.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.prefix = catalina.
2localhost.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.level = FINE
2localhost.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.directory = ${catalina.base}/logs
2localhost.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.prefix = localhost.
3manager.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.level = FINE
3manager.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.directory = ${catalina.base}/logs
3manager.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.prefix = manager.
4admin.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.level = FINE
4admin.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.directory = ${catalina.base}/logs
4admin.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.prefix = admin.
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.level = FINE
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.formatter = java.util.logging.SimpleFormatter
############################################################
# Facility specific properties.
# Provides extra control for each logger.
############################################################
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].level = INFO
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].handlers = \
2localhost.org.apache.juli.FileHandler
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].[/manager].level = INFO
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].[/manager].handlers = \
3manager.org.apache.juli.FileHandler
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].[/admin].level = INFO
org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].[localhost].[/admin].handlers = \
4admin.org.apache.juli.FileHandler
# For example, set the com.xyz.foo logger to only log SEVERE
# messages:
#org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.level = FINE
#org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.level = FINE
#org.apache.catalina.session.ManagerBase.level = FINE
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Example logging.properties for the servlet-examples web application to be placed
in WEB-INF/classes inside the web application:
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handlers = org.apache.juli.FileHandler, java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler
############################################################
# Handler specific properties.
# Describes specific configuration info for Handlers.
############################################################
org.apache.juli.FileHandler.level = FINE
org.apache.juli.FileHandler.directory = ${catalina.base}/logs
org.apache.juli.FileHandler.prefix = servlet-examples.
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.level = FINE
java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler.formatter = java.util.logging.SimpleFormatter
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|
Handler Properties |
Tomcat's JULI implementation is not intended to be a fully-featured logging libary, only
a simple bridge to those libraries. However, JULI does provide several properties
for configuring the its handlers. These are listed below.
FileHandler |
Attribute | Description |
---|
directory |
The directory where the log file will be written. The Tomcat server account
should have write permissions to this directory. The default value of this
property is logs.
| prefix |
The log file name prefix. This is the portion of the log file name before the date.
The default value of this property is juli..
| suffix |
The log file name suffix. This is the portion of the log file name after the date.
The default value of this property is .log.
| level |
The threshold level for this handler. It must be one of the levels in the
java.util.logging.Level class.
The default value of this property is ALL. Messages whose level is below
the specified level will not be written to the file.
| filter |
The fully-qualified class name of a class that implements the
java.util.logging.Filter
interface. JULI will load this class and associate it with this handler to filter its messages.
By default, there is no Filter associated with the handler.
| formatter |
The fully-qualified class name of a class that implements the
java.util.logging.Formatter
interface. JULI will load this class and associate it with this handler to format its messages.
By default, there is no Formatter associated with the handler.
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