I'm having an issue where I need my users to be able to run my application without administrator rights, but at the same time, I need NLog to be able to create it's log files, which it needs administrator rights to create them in the same folder the application is installed in.
I'm trying to create a directory under the application directory, named Logs, and give everyone-modify permissions with inno setup. I'm going to set up my NLog config to write to this new Logs folder instead of the application directory, so even when the application is run by non-administrators, NLog has sufficient privileges to create the logs.
My question is, is this the proper way to do this? I'm not very experienced with NLog or InnoSetup, so I'm not sure if there is something I'm missing, or if this will possibly create security problems?
I have my NLog config section set up like so
NLog
<nlog xmlns="http://www.nlog-project.org/schemas/NLog.xsd" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">
<targets>
<target name="el" xsi:type="EventLog" log="ASI" layout="${message} ${exception:innerFormat=tostring:maxInnerExceptionLevel=10:format=tostring}" />
<target name="fl" xsi:type="File" fileName="Logs\iDocClientLog.log" layout="${date}: ${message} ${exception:innerFormat=tostring:maxInnerExceptionLevel=10:format=tostring}" />
</targets>
<rules>
<logger name="*" minlevel="Debug" writeTo="el,fl" />
</rules>
</nlog>
And my InnoSetup installer script Dirs section is like this
InnoSetup
[Dirs]
Name: "{app}\Logs"; Permissions: everyone-modify
Related
I have recently upgraded my asp.net core project to .net core 2.2 and at same time updated NLog.Web.AspNetCore.
After I did this (maybe coincidence?) I noticed that log files are not being generated.
In my config this is my target:
<target xsi:type="File" name="allfile" fileName="${currentdir}/Logs/nlog-all-${shortdate}.log"
layout="${longdate}|${event-properties:item=EventId_Id}|${uppercase:${level}}|${logger}|${message} ${exception:format=tostring}" />
After some debugging I realised that if I specified the path explicitly then it would generate log file:
<target xsi:type="File" name="allfile" fileName="E:\Project\Logs\nlog-all-${shortdate}.log"
layout="${longdate}|${event-properties:item=EventId_Id}|${uppercase:${level}}|${logger}|${message} ${exception:format=tostring}" />
I have throwExceptions="true" set in config but when a file is not generated no exception is thrown, it just silently doesn't create the file.
To further debug this I created a console project and added nuget NLog.Web.AspNetCore and copied my config. Now in the console project it works fine and is creating log files in the debug output directory.
Is there any way to debug why the log file isn't being generated with this target in my main project?
Instead of using ${currentdir} then consider using ${aspnet-appbasepath} (Or ${basedir} if not in-process-hosting)
NLog InternalLogger usually gives very good hints when something is not working as expected.
Please avoid using throwExceptions="true" as it is for unit-testing, and not for production environments.
What i want is to pull the Log File path from my Web.config appsettings section.
The scenario is that, the deployment team would replace all the files while deployment except the web.config. Hence even if i set up my NLog Config File, it would be replaced in the next deployment and all my settings would be lost.
Is there a way that I could read the appsettings from my config and use it to set my log file path?
<target xsi:type="File" name="FileLog" fileName="PULL_LOG_PATH_FROM_WEB_CONFIG/${shortdate}.log">
Use NLog.Extended and use
${appsetting:key1}.
So
<target xsi:type="File" name="FileLog" fileName="${appsetting:key1}/${shortdate}.log" />
See docs for ${appsetting}
update: this is currently only supported for ASP.NET and not for ASP.NET Core. See issue for ASP.NET Core: https://github.com/NLog/NLog/issues/2334
Can slowcheetah transform an external config file in an azure web role? e.g. I have logging info in log4net.config. But the transformed version does not get created when packaged.
I did not manage to get slowCheetah working in my Azure solution.
One alternative you can use is to create complete config files for each environment - e.g. :
log4net.debug.config
log4net.release.config
and copy the contents of these into the log4net.config at buildtime depending on the build configuration chosen.
This is done by adding a build target to your csproj file like so:
<Target Name="BeforeBuild">
<Delete Files="$(ProjectDir)log4net.config" />
<Copy SourceFiles="$(ProjectDir)log4net.$(Configuration).config"
DestinationFiles="$(ProjectDir)log4net.config" />
</Target>
(you may have to modify the paths in the script depending on where in the solution your config files are)
You can find more information on MSBuild and manipulating your .csproj file here and here
IISExpress writes log and configuration data to pre-determined location out of the box.
The directory is an "IISExpress" directory stored in a user's Documents directory.
In the directory is stored the following folders files underneath.
Config
Logs
TraceLogFiles
The location of my home directory is on a network share, determined by group policy
Currently we are encountering scenarios where visual studio locks up when stopping debugging Silverlight applications using IIS Express.
I was looking to change the location for the log & configuration data for IISExpress to see if this fixes the problem of visual studio locking up. Is it possible to change the default location of log & config files ?
1 . By default applicationhost.config file defines following two log file locations. Here IIS_USER_HOME would be expanded as %userprofile%\documents\IISExpress\.
<siteDefaults>
<logFile logFormat="W3C" directory="%IIS_USER_HOME%\Logs" />
<traceFailedRequestsLogging directory="%IIS_USER_HOME%\TraceLogFiles" enabled="true" />
</siteDefaults>
You can update above directory paths to change the log file locations.
2 . If you are running IIS Express from command line, you can use '/config' switch to provide configuration file of your choice. Following link may help you http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/870/running-iis-express-from-the-command-line/
http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.applicationhost/sites/sitedefaults
<configuration>
<system.applicationHost>
<sites>
<siteDefaults>
<logFile
logFormat="W3C"
directory="%SystemDrive%\inetpub\logs\LogFiles"
enabled="true"
/>
<traceFailedRequestsLogging
enabled="true"
directory="%SystemDrive%\inetpub\logs\FailedReqLogFiles"
maxLogFiles="20"
/>
<limits connectionTimeout="00:01:00" />
<ftpServer serverAutoStart="true" />
<bindings>
<binding
protocol="http"
bindingInformation="127.0.0.1:8080:"
/>
</bindings>
</siteDefaults>
</sites>
</system.applicationHost>
</configuration>
I find web.config documentation is a messy. It is therefore better to provide a complete parent history than a floating snippet with the expectation that the reader naturally knows where it goes.
By default it will be in:
C:\Users\ user_name \Documents\IISExpress\Logs\
My NLog targets is like this:
<targets>
<target xsi:type="Console" name="console"
layout="${longdate}|${level}|${message}" />
<target xsi:type="File" name="ErrorLog" fileName="${basedir}/error.txt"
layout="${longdate}
Trace: ${stacktrace}
${message}" />
<target xsi:type="File" name="AccessLog" fileName="${basedir}/access.txt"
layout="${shortdate} | ${message}" />
</targets>
But this causes problems if the user isn't an admin on their machine, because they will not have write access to "Program Files". How can I get something like %AppData% to NLog instead of BaseDir?
You're looking for the NLog special folders.
Example:
...fileName="${specialfolder:folder=ApplicationData}/Program/file.txt"...
Oren's answer should be the right answer. However, for the life of me I couldn't get it to work with my .NET 4.0 website using nLog 2.0.0.0. I ended up using simply
fileName="${basedir}app_data\logs\${shortdate}.log"
${specialfolder:ApplicationData} also works
The previous answers helped solve the problem I was having, but a couple of years later and the solution is now somewhat different under v4.3. The directory and filename are combined with the path.
#theGecko's link is still current for the syntax, but the page is deficient of an example:
https://github.com/nlog/NLog/wiki/Special-Folder-Layout-Renderer
The following example would write the file myLog.log to the current users application data roaming directory C:\USers\current.user\AppData\Roaming\My\Path\Somewhere:
fileName="${specialfolder:dir=My/Path/Somewhere/:file=myFile.log:folder=ApplicationData}"
For logging to the project directory:
While the previous answers work for the original question, searching for how to log to the project APP_DATA directory leads to this question. And while bkaid's answer works for ASP.NET and for using the APP_DATA folder specifically, for .NET Core and .NET 5 the solution is a bit different, because that motif has been abandoned in favor of defining a wwwroot folder for only those things which should be served, and the remainder being private. The answer for .NET Core/5, then, is to write to the solution root directory:
First, ensure the NLog.Web.AspNetCore assembly is added to nlog.config:
<extensions>
<add assembly="NLog.Web.AspNetCore"/>
</extensions>
Then use one of the layout renderers provided by that extension, in this case ${aspnet-appbasepath} which references the solution root directory:
<targets>
<target name="file"
type="File"
xsi:type="File"
fileName="${aspnet-appbasepath}/log/${shortdate}.log"
layout="${longdate}|${event-properties:item=EventId_Id:whenEmpty=0}"/>
</targets>
This will write the file to <solution folder>/log/2021-07-01.log, which will never be served by the public-facing website. Other layout renderers provided by this assembly are listed on the NLog website.