Log4j2 WildFly 9 web application - log file empty

[aliosha79]

I'm working on Wildfly 9/10. I wrote my web application with my custom Log4j2 configuration file.

<configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
  <RollingFile name="General" fileName="D:/logs/general/general.log"
  filePattern="D:/logs/general/$${date:yyyy-MM}/general-%d{MM-dd-yyyy}-%i.log.gz">
  <PatternLayout
  pattern="%d{ABSOLUTE} %level{length=5} [%thread] %logger{1} - %msg%n" />
  <SizeBasedTriggeringPolicy size="20 MB" />
  </RollingFile>
  <Async name="asyncGeneral" bufferSize="10" includeLocation="true">
  <AppenderRef ref="General" />
  </Async>
</Appenders>
<Loggers>
  <Root level="INFO"> 
  <AppenderRef ref="asyncGeneral" />
  </Root>
</Loggers>

I chose to use slf4j as it offers me a good facade to interact with log4j2. These are my declared dependencies:

     <dependency>

          <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>

          <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>

            <version>1.7.7</version>              

  </dependency>

  <dependency>

          <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>

          <artifactId>log4j-slf4j-impl</artifactId>

          <version>2.6</version>

  </dependency>

  <dependency>

            <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>

            <artifactId>log4j-api</artifactId>

            <version>2.6</version>

  </dependency>

  <dependency>

                 <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>

            <artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>

                 <version>2.6</version>

  </dependency>

  <dependency>

            <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>

            <artifactId>log4j-web</artifactId>

            <version>2.6</version>

  </dependency>

The configuration file is correctly included inside a war jar lib.

The result is that when i run the web application it generates the file:

    D:/logs/general.log

But it continues to print the log on the server console, while the file keeps to remain empty.

i have also tried to add the

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<jboss-deployment-structure xmlns="urn:jboss:deployment-structure:1.2">

    <deployment>

        <!-- Exclusions allow you to prevent the server from automatically adding some dependencies -->

        <exclusions>

            <module name="org.apache.log4j" />

        </exclusions>

    </deployment>

</jboss-deployment-structure>

jboss-deplyment-structure.xml file inside the  WEB-INF folder of my web application

i realized that when i deploy my application, the server print this debug level information:

12:58:17,190 INFO [stdout] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 64) 2016-06-16 12:58:17,190 ServerService Thread Pool -- 64 DEBUG createAppender(={General}, errorRef="null", blocking="true", shutdownTimeout="0", bufferSize="10", name="asyncGeneral", includeLocation="true", Filter=null, Configuration(vfs:/C:/Windows/System32/content/sec-api.war/WEB-INF/lib/com.application.jar/log4j2.xml), ignoreExceptions="true")

12:58:17,194 INFO [stdout] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 64) 2016-06-16 12:58:17,194 ServerService Thread Pool -- 64 DEBUG createAppenders(={Console, RoutingAppender, General,asyncGeneral})

12:58:17,196 INFO [stdout] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 64) 2016-06-16 12:58:17,196 ServerService Thread Pool -- 64 DEBUG reateAppenderRef(ref="asyncGeneral", level="null", Filter=null)

12:58:17,200 INFO [stdout] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 64) 2016-06-16 12:58:17,200 ServerService Thread Pool -- 64 DEBUG createLogger(additivity="null", level="DEBUG", includeLocation="null", ={async, asyncGeneral, asyncDebug}, ={}, Configuration(vfs:/C:/Windows/System32/content/sec-api.war/WEB-INF/lib/com.klopotek.core-1.3.0-SNAPSHOT.jar/log4j2.xml), Filter=null)

12:58:17,225 INFO [stdout] (ServerService Thread Pool -- 64) 2016-06-16 12:58:17,224 ServerService Thread Pool -- 64 DEBUG Registering MBean org.apache.logging.log4j2:type=/sec-api,component=AsyncAppenders,name=asyncGeneral

The same configuration works properly on a standalone application.

What am i missing?

Is it possibile to integrate this machanism with Wildfly Logging Management through web administration console?

[jamezp]

If you're using log4j as your logging facade you either need to add an exclusion for org.slf4j, exclude the logging subsystem or change the add-logging-api-dependencies attribute to false.

Example jboss-deployment-structure.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<jboss-deployment-structure xmlns="urn:jboss:deployment-structure:1.2">
    <deployment>
        <exclude-subsystems>
            <subsystem name="logging" />
        </exclude-subsystems>
    </deployment>
</jboss-deployment-structure>

CLI command to change the attribute (note this will cause all deployments to not get any default logging modules added)

/subsystem=logging:write-attribute(name=add-logging-api-dependencies, value=false)

--

James R. Perkins

[gaurav9822]

@James why do we need to exclude "logging" subsystem?

[jamezp]

You only need to exclude the logging subsystem if you want to use your own version of log4j. By default WildFly will add a org.apache.log4j dependency to your deployment that works directly with the org.jboss.logmanager module. For WildFly 9 or higher as well you could just set the add-logging-api-dependencies to false as described above as well. Again though you only need to do this if you want to use your own version of log4j or use a custom slf4j binding.

--

James R. Perkins