File appender of log4j2 is not working in standalone tomcat

Question

I have run into a problem using spring-boot, log4j2 and tomcat.

I have a log4j2 xml config file to use for logging and there is 2 appenders, a console and a file appender.

The problem is that whenever I run the application using main method of the Application class everything works fine, but when I build the war file of the application and deploy it into a standalone tomcat, file appender does not work.

Actually what happens is that console appender works correctly [logs are printed in console] and the file which is specified in log4j2 config file is created but it remains empty.

This is log4j2 config file:

<Properties>
    <Property name="LOG_PATTERN">
        %d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss} %5p ${hostName} --- [%15.15t] %-40.40c{1.} %L : %m%n%ex
    </Property>
    <Property name="LOG_PATH">
        <!-- <absolute_path_to_log_file_directory> -->
    </Property>
</Properties>

<Appenders>
    <Console name="ConsoleAppender" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
        <PatternLayout pattern="${LOG_PATTERN}"/>
    </Console>

    <RollingFile name="FileAppender"
                 fileName="${LOG_PATH}/mylogfile.log"
                 filePattern="${LOG_PATH}/mylogfile-%d{yyyy-MM-dd}-%i.log">
        <PatternLayout>
            <Pattern>${LOG_PATTERN}</Pattern>
        </PatternLayout>
        <Policies>
            <TimeBasedTriggeringPolicy interval="1" />
        </Policies>
    </RollingFile>
</Appenders>

<Loggers>
    <Logger name="my.package.name" level="debug" additivity="false">
        <AppenderRef ref="FileAppender" />
        <AppenderRef ref="ConsoleAppender" />
    </Logger>


    <Root level="info">
        <AppenderRef ref="ConsoleAppender" />
        <AppenderRef ref="FileAppender" />
    </Root>
</Loggers>

Any help in this matter is appreciated.

Actually this question was reported and no one has answered. stackoverflow.com/questions/38012662/spring-boot-war-log4j2 — ali4j
Finally I came up with this idea that switching to logback is the only solution. — ali4j

Basavakumar Basavakumar · Accepted Answer · 2018-06-27T07:17:37

you can add the below to your tomcat startup to your catalina opts

-Dlogging.config=<<external-folder>>\log4j2.xml

File appender of log4j2 is not working in standalone tomcat

1 Answers