[ginp-users] log4j is now working

[Brian B. <Br...@Pi...>]

Each time I started my tomcat server with the ginp webapp deployed, I noticed the 
following message in ../logs/catalina.out...

log4j:WARN No appenders could be found for logger (net.sf.ginp.config.GinpEnv)

I've spent quite a lot of time working with log4j over the years, so I decided to 
investigate. The project currently ships with /src/log4j.properties, but this file is not 
much more than a standard log4j sample and does not work with the existing v0.23 
source.

The as-shipped log4j.properties file doesn't work because the source code is 
following the recommended convention of using a logger that is derived from the 
fully-qualified java class names. Unfortunately, the log4j configuration file doesn't say 
how these logging events should be handled.

I've attached a copy of my own log4j.properties, which is working quite well with ginp 
and has resolved the startup error completely.

My changes are as follows:

1. Define a rootLogger which sets the system-wide logging capture level AND an 
appender which will collect any messages not handled explicitly. (So far, I've not seen 
any stray messages on my system). I've set this to capture DEBUG (and higher) 
events, but INFO or even WARN would be better on a production system.

2. Define a logger for net.sf.ginp... this ensures that log events from all ginp 
components will be handled by the same set of appenders. I have specified two active 
appenders - one to capture INFO (and above) messages and the other to capture all 
levels of messages.

3. Define two DailyRollingFileAppender instances for ginp events. I've given them 
meaningful names and filenames. They write to the tomcat logs directory using the 
${catalina.home} property, which is automatically maintained by tomcat. I use the 
Threshold property to select the event-levels-of-interest to each appender, but am 
puzzled by the fact that they don't work as described. I haven't had time to investigate 
yet, but at least I get all ginp messages logged!

4. I've defined a syslog appender for completeness, but haven't activated it in this 
configuration.

I hope you find this useful in your own installations.
Regards,

Brian