Configuring RollingFileAppender in log4j

Question

I'm working on a set of web services and we'd like to have a daily rotated log.

I'm trying to get org.apache.log4j.rolling.RollingFileAppender from the log4j extras companion working, since the documentation suggests this is best for production environments.

I have both the main log4J library (log4j-1.2.15.jar) and the log4j extras library (apache-log4j-extras-1.1.jar) on the classpath.

I have the following configuration for the appender in the log4j.properties file:

### SOAP Request Appender
log4j.appender.request=org.apache.log4j.rolling.RollingFileAppender
log4j.appender.request.File=SOAPmessages.log
log4j.appender.request.RollingPolicy=org.apache.log4j.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy
log4j.appender.request.RollingPolicy.ActiveFileName =SOAPmessages-%d.log
log4j.appender.request.RollingPolicy.FileNamePattern=SOAPmessages-%d.log.zip
log4j.appender.request.layout = org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.request.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ABSOLUTE} %5p %c{1}:%L - %m%n

However, when I start the web service with log4j in debug mode I get these error messages:

log4j: Parsing appender named "request".
log4j: Parsing layout options for "request".
log4j: Setting property [conversionPattern] to [%d{ABSOLUTE} %5p %c{1}:%L - %m%n].
log4j: End of parsing for "request".
log4j: Setting property [file] to [/logs/SOAPmessages.log].
log4j:WARN Failed to set property [rollingPolicy] to value "org.apache.log4j.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy". 
log4j:WARN Please set a rolling policy for the RollingFileAppender named 'request'
log4j: Parsed "request" options.

I've found documentation about how to configure this appender a little sparse, so can anyone help me fix my configuration?

EDIT0: Added debug mode output, rather than just the standard warnings

Answer 1

Regarding error: log4j:ERROR Element type "rollingPolicy" must be declared

1. Use a log4j.jar version newer than log4j-1.2.14.jar, which has a log4j.dtd defining rollingPolicy.
2. of course you also need apache-log4j-extras-1.1.jar
3. Check if any other third party jars you are using perhaps have an older version of log4j.jar packed inside. If so, make sure your log4j.jar comes first in the order before the third party containing the older log4j.jar.

Answer 2

I'm suspicious of the ActiveFileName property. According to the log4j javadoc, there isn't such a property on the TimeBasedRollingPolicy class. (No setActiveFileName or getActiveFileName methods.)

I don't know what specifying an unknown property would do, but it is possible that it will cause the containing object to be abandoned, and that could lead to the warnings that you saw.

Try leaving it out and seeing what happens.