I am using Spring boot to build a simple REST service and I am wondering about the most appropriate way to handle the logging.
In my application.properties file I have the following:
logging.level.org.springframework.web: DEBUG
While developing the application I simply run it as such:
java -jar myapp.war
thus, I got all the nice log messages in stdout. However, I intend to deploy it, and I'm wondering what is the most appropriate way to deploy the application and still have my logs.
Sure, one can simply redirect the output
java -jar myapp.war >> somefile
but this is not very elegant, and I want to deploy my application so that it can easily be used as a service:
ln -s /my/app/xyz.war /etc/init.d/xyz
Then, doing
service xyz start|stop|restrart
to manage it. Seems like doing this prevents me from redirecting stdout ..
Any ideas or advice about this?
In you application.properties file you can set two attributes for your logging.file.
Like in the documentation description: (26.3 File output)
By default, Spring Boot will only log to the console and will not
write log files. If you want to write log files in addition to the
console output you need to set a...
logging.file
Writes to the specified log file. Names can be an exact location or relative to the current directory.
logging.path
Writes spring.log to the specified directory. Names can be an exact location or relative to the current directory.
After setting one of those logging properties will be written in a file.
Here you can find the complete doc
What you are really after is Spring Boot file logging output functionality.
Quoting the above documentation:
By default, Spring Boot will only log to the console and will not
write log files. If you want to write log files in addition to the
console output you need to set a logging.file or logging.path property
(for example in your application.properties).
Essentially adding in your application.properties
:
logging.file=name.of.my.log.file.log
logging.path=/path/where/above/log/file/gets/stored
Spring Boot support almost every logging frameworks you can use as per your convenience, but I will suggest you to use slf4j logging framework and customize using logback.xml it's very easy look at
1) Create LOGGER object adding this single line of code in your class
private static final Logger LOGGER = LoggerFactory.getLogger(YourClassName.class);
2) Create logback.xml file in /resource folder and copy below code
<?xml version = "1.0" encoding = "UTF-8"?>
<configuration>
<appender name = "STDOUT" class = "ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
<encoder>
<pattern>[%d{yyyy-MMM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.sss'Z'}] [%C] [%t] [%L] [%-5p] %m%n</pattern>
</encoder>
</appender>
<appender name = "FILE" class = "ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
<File>/var/tmp/app.log</File> <!-- LOCATION of FILE WHERE YOU WANT TO SAVE -->
<encoder>
<pattern>[%d{yyyy-MM-dd'T'HH:mm:ss.sss'Z'}] [%C] [%t] [%L] [%-5p] %m%n</pattern>
</encoder>
</appender>
<root level = "INFO">
<appender-ref ref = "FILE"/>
<appender-ref ref = "STDOUT"/>
</root>
</configuration>
Using logback.xml configuration you can customize your application logging in spring boot
Why wouldn't you wrap it in docker container?
It will give you possibility to have everything inside the container and distribute it easily.