what is 'facility' in log4net Appender? - log4net

can you explain me what is'facility' in the log4net appender config ? This is an example from papertrail guide.
<appender name="PaperTrail" type="log4net.Appender.RemoteSyslogAppender">
<facility value="Local6" />
...
</appender>
What is the Local6 for ? and the value 'Local6' ? I did some google search but still feeling confused about it. And I'm looking best practice to use log4net for papertrail too.

Related

log4net items not shown in AppServiceAppLogs

We are using log4net for our application logging in azure.
We configured it according to this document , the logs are stored in
d:/home/LogFiles/Application/Log4netfile-[%processid].txt
we can download the files from https://xxxx.scm.azurewebsites.net/api/dump and I can also see them in Log stream, there it looks like this
2022-02-06T18:22:57 PID[29616] Verbose log4net: Adding appender named [FileAppender] to logger [root].
2022-02-06T18:22:57 PID[29616] Verbose log4net: Hierarchy Threshold []
2022-02-06T18:22:58 PID[29616] Verbose LOG4NET Fatal LOG4NET LOG4NET
2022-02-06T18:22:58 PID[29616] Verbose LOG4NET Debug Message Message
Line items like:
log4net: Adding appender named
are created by log4net during internal setup (using debug=true), and those show up in our AppServiceAppLogs, however, items which are genereted by the logger using:
Logger.Fatal("LOG4NET Fatal LOG4NET LOG4NET");
are visible in stream and files but they are not showing up in AppServiceLogs.
I tried multiple different appenders the only one which shows up in Log-Streams and in files is FileAppender (or RollingFileAppender), all others are not showing in LogStreams or (as expected) in the files.
Based on this https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/app-service/troubleshoot-diagnostic-logs#send-logs-to-azure-monitor I assume that everything writen to the files should be than sent to azure-monitor - but in our case this is not hapening. Could you provide some reference about implementation / code how the sending of the files is done, and which process does that ?
I am wandering is there anything which we could configure differently to get the log-items to end up in AppServiceLogs? Or should we use some other appender?
I am aware of the issue in AspNetTraceAppender and I am trying to avoid implementation of new appender.
There are a few things you can look into:
Call log4net configure before writing to your log file (only once is enough):
log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator();
or
log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();
and then you can add flushing to your configuration:
<appender name="AzureTraceAppender" type="log4net.Appender.TraceAppender">
<param name="ImmediateFlush" value="true" />
<layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
<!-- can be any pattern you like -->
<conversionPattern value="%logger - %message" />
</layout>
</appender>
Immediately, this will flush the message.
In Global.asax, To make log4net read your configuration.
void Application_Start(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Code that runs on application startup
// Initialize log4net.
log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator.Configure();
}
Make sure Azure Diagnostics has configured to all information needed for debugging.
After that, you can enable internal log4net debugging. Refer internal debugging on this log4net faq page. Standard it should log to your listener you have configured. To the trace element Add the autoflush="true" option . Or find directory on the worker role you can write to and access to read your logs.

Logging with applicationinsights in spring boot app

We are using spring boot to send metrics to app insight we are using applicationinsights-logging-log4j2.
Below are the appenders we are using in logj2-spring.xml
*
<Appenders>
<Console name="Console" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
<PatternLayout pattern="%d{MM-dd-yyyy'T'HH:mm:ss.SSS,UTC} %correlationId [%thread] %-5level %logger{36}- %msg%n"/>
</Console>
<ApplicationInsightsAppender name="aiAppender">
</ApplicationInsightsAppender>
</Appenders>
<Loggers>
<Root level="INFO">
<AppenderRef ref="Console" />
<AppenderRef ref="aiAppender" />
</Root>
</Loggers>
We are seeing the logs in app insight search screen however i have few questions.
Is there a way to define a custom info in logging like correlationId(guid used to track a flow uniquely) and send it to AI just like we are appending in console logs.
Is there anything like pattern we can define for AI.
Is there a use of console appender and logging to console if we are logging to AI.
You can create a class that will extend the OncePerRequestFilter, and in that class generate one Id using UUID generator and set this UUID in variable, let's say RequestId.
And then write MDC.put('requestid', RequestId).
OncePerRequestFilter class is executed with every HTTP request, you won't be required to call the class extending it explicitly, and MDC.put('requestid', RequestId) will be added as external property in your application insight log.
This is just a workaround for correlationid though it is providing us a same feature, that we can aggregate a log. Whatever requestid is being generated, you can retrieve that and then use it application insight to see logs for that request.
I believe console appender is still helpful, because I. AI we can see loga after at least 4 to 5 mins, so for real time debugging console logs are helpful. Though you can. Configure what type of logs you want to see in console and what you wanna sent to ai.

Using Syslog's unix socket with Log4J2

I would like to send the logs of an application on a rsyslog server using the client protocol : Unix socket.
Both application and rsyslog server are on the same machine.
I've been comparing different logging tools : Log4J, Logback and Log4J2.
Log4J's Syslog appender doesn't permit it natively. A solution is to use Syslog4J and configure our Syslog4JAppender this way :
<appender name="mySyslogAppender" class="org.productivity.java.syslog4j.impl.log4j.Syslog4jAppender">
<param name="protocol" value="unix_socket" />
...
</appender>
Same as Log4J, Logback's Syslog appender doesn't permit it natively. A solution is to use Syslog4J and logback-syslog4j tool, and configure our appender this way :
<appender name="mySyslogAppender" class="com.papertrailapp.logback.Syslog4jAppender">
<syslogConfig class="org.productivity.java.syslog4j.impl.unix.socket.UnixSocketSyslogConfig">
...
</syslogConfig>
</appender>
Now I'm looking for a solution for Log4J 2, but I didn't find any.
Do you know one ?
Do these tools will include natively this functionality ?

How to setup NServiceBus and Log4Net to save to a file (without profiles)

I am running NServiceBus and having this issue. To try and troubleshoot it I would like to make NServiceBus log to a file.
The problem is that I am hosting NServiceBus in IIS, not NServiceBus.Host.exe. Because of that I don't know a way to turn on the the production profile.
Is there a way to tell NServiceBus to log to a file not using profiles? (Or a way to set the profile when not using NServiceBus.Host.exe?)
I had hoped that there is a way change NServiceBus.Configure.With().Log4Net(); to put an Appender in that will log to a file. But I don't see anyway to do that in code (all the examples use xml).
Alternatly if there is a way to change this to log to a file that would be great too:
<configSections>
<section name="Logging" type="NServiceBus.Config.Logging, NServiceBus.Core" />
</configSections>
<Logging Threshold="FINE" />
Does anyone know how to do either of these things?
Implement IWantCustomLogging:
https://github.com/NServiceBus/NServiceBus/blob/master/Samples/GenericHost/LoggingFromAppConfig/EndpointConfig.cs
And specify the RollingFileAppender in code:
Configure.Log4net< RollingFileAppender>(...)

Does Log4Net Http Appender exist?

Is there an appender in log4net that can allow a winform client to read a log4net log on another server without using a share? My application is hosted as a web service. I'm looking for an HTTP appender or something similar.
There is a GitHub project called PostLog that is a HttpAppender for log4net.
I think you could use the Remoting Appender, something like this:
<appender name="RemotingAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RemotingAppender" >
<sink value="http://localhost:8080/LoggingSink" />
<lossy value="false" />
<bufferSize value="95" />
<onlyFixPartialEventData value="true" />
</appender>
According to the docs:
This Appender is designed to deliver
events to a remote sink. That is any
object that implements the
RemotingAppender.IRemoteLoggingSink
interface. It delivers the events
using .NET remoting. The object to
deliver events to is specified by
setting the appenders Sink property.
There is also a UdpAppender and there is this open source client that can receive these messages:
http://log2console.codeplex.com/

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