The default log output from Spring Boot looks like this:

2014-03-05 10:57:51.112  INFO 45469 --- [           main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine  : Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.52
2014-03-05 10:57:51.253  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.a.c.c.C.[Tomcat].[localhost].[/]       : Initializing Spring embedded WebApplicationContext
2014-03-05 10:57:51.253  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.web.context.ContextLoader            : Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 1358 ms
2014-03-05 10:57:51.698  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.b.c.e.ServletRegistrationBean        : Mapping servlet: 'dispatcherServlet' to [/]
2014-03-05 10:57:51.702  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.b.c.embedded.FilterRegistrationBean  : Mapping filter: 'hiddenHttpMethodFilter' to: [/*]

The following items are output:

	Note
	Logback does not have a FATAL level (it is mapped to ERROR)

The default log configuration will echo messages to the console as they are written. By default ERROR, WARN and INFO level messages are logged. You can also enable a “debug” mode by starting your application with a --debug flag.

$ java -jar myapp.jar --debug

	Note
	you can also specify debug=true in your application.properties.

When the debug mode is enabled, a selection of core loggers (embedded container, Hibernate and Spring Boot) are configured to output more information. Enabling the debug mode does not configure your application to log all messages with DEBUG level.

Alternatively, you can enable a “trace” mode by starting your application with a --trace flag (or trace=true in your application.properties). This will enable trace logging for a selection of core loggers (embedded container, Hibernate schema generation and the whole Spring portfolio).

%clr(%5p)

%clr(%d{yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS}){yellow}

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).

The following table shows how the logging.* properties can be used together:

Log files will rotate when they reach 10 MB and as with console output, ERROR, WARN and INFO level messages are logged by default.

	Note
	The logging system is initialized early in the application lifecycle and as such logging properties will not be found in property files loaded via @PropertySource annotations.

	Tip
	Logging properties are independent of the actual logging infrastructure. As a result, specific configuration keys (such as logback.configurationFile for Logback) are not managed by spring Boot.

All the supported logging systems can have the logger levels set in the Spring Environment (so for example in application.properties) using ‘logging.level.*=LEVEL’ where ‘LEVEL’ is one of TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, OFF. The root logger can be configured using logging.level.root. Example application.properties:

logging.level.root=WARN
logging.level.org.springframework.web=DEBUG
logging.level.org.hibernate=ERROR

	Note
	By default Spring Boot remaps Thymeleaf INFO messages so that they are logged at DEBUG level. This helps to reduce noise in the standard log output. See LevelRemappingAppender for details of how you can apply remapping in your own configuration.

The various logging systems can be activated by including the appropriate libraries on the classpath, and further customized by providing a suitable configuration file in the root of the classpath, or in a location specified by the Spring Environment property logging.config.

You can force Spring Boot to use a particular logging system using the org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingSystem system property. The value should be the fully-qualified class name of a LoggingSystem implementation. You can also disable Spring Boot’s logging configuration entirely by using a value of none.

	Note
	Since logging is initialized before the ApplicationContext is created, it isn’t possible to control logging from @PropertySources in Spring @Configuration files. System properties and the conventional Spring Boot external configuration files work just fine.)

Depending on your logging system, the following files will be loaded:

	Note
	When possible we recommend that you use the -spring variants for your logging configuration (for example logback-spring.xml rather than logback.xml). If you use standard configuration locations, Spring cannot completely control log initialization.

	Warning
	There are known classloading issues with Java Util Logging that cause problems when running from an ‘executable jar’. We recommend that you avoid it if at all possible.

To help with the customization some other properties are transferred from the Spring Environment to System properties:

All the logging systems supported can consult System properties when parsing their configuration files. See the default configurations in spring-boot.jar for examples.

	Tip
	If you want to use a placeholder in a logging property, you should use Spring Boot’s syntax and not the syntax of the underlying framework. Notably, if you’re using Logback, you should use : as the delimiter between a property name and its default value and not :-.

Tip

You can add MDC and other ad-hoc content to log lines by overriding only the LOG_LEVEL_PATTERN (or logging.pattern.level with Logback). For example, if you use logging.pattern.level=user:%X{user} %5p then the default log format will contain an MDC entry for "user" if it exists, e.g. 2015-09-30 12:30:04.031 user:juergen INFO 22174 --- [ nio-8080-exec-0] demo.Controller Handling authenticated request

Spring Boot includes a number of extensions to Logback which can help with advanced configuration. You can use these extensions in your logback-spring.xml configuration file.

	Note
	You cannot use extensions in the standard logback.xml configuration file since it’s loaded too early. You need to either use logback-spring.xml or define a logging.config property.

	Warning
	The extensions cannot be used with Logback’s configuration scanning. If you attempt to do so, making changes to the configuration file will result in an error similar to one of the following being logged:

ERROR in ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.Interpreter@4:71 - no applicable action for [springProperty], current ElementPath is [[configuration][springProperty]]
ERROR in ch.qos.logback.core.joran.spi.Interpreter@4:71 - no applicable action for [springProfile], current ElementPath is [[configuration][springProfile]]

<springProfile name="staging">
    <!-- configuration to be enabled when the "staging" profile is active -->
</springProfile>

<springProfile name="dev, staging">
    <!-- configuration to be enabled when the "dev" or "staging" profiles are active -->
</springProfile>

<springProfile name="!production">
    <!-- configuration to be enabled when the "production" profile is not active -->
</springProfile>

26.6.2 Environment properties

The <springProperty> tag allows you to surface properties from the Spring Environment for use within Logback. This can be useful if you want to access values from your application.properties file in your logback configuration. The tag works in a similar way to Logback’s standard <property> tag, but rather than specifying a direct value you specify the source of the property (from the Environment). You can use the scope attribute if you need to store the property somewhere other than in local scope. If you need a fallback value in case the property is not set in the Environment, you can use the defaultValue attribute.

<springProperty scope="context" name="fluentHost" source="myapp.fluentd.host"
        defaultValue="localhost"/>
<appender name="FLUENT" class="ch.qos.logback.more.appenders.DataFluentAppender">
    <remoteHost>${fluentHost}</remoteHost>
    ...
</appender>

	Note
	The source must be specified using kebab-case (my.property-name). However, properties can be added to the Environment using the relaxed rules.