27. Logging

Spring Boot uses Commons Logging for all internal logging but leaves the underlying log implementation open. Default configurations are provided for Java Util Logging, Log4J2, and Logback. In each case, loggers are pre-configured to use console output with optional file output also available.

By default, if you use the “Starters”, Logback is used for logging. Appropriate Logback routing is also included to ensure that dependent libraries that use Java Util Logging, Commons Logging, Log4J, or SLF4J all work correctly.

[Tip]Tip

There are a lot of logging frameworks available for Java. Do not worry if the above list seems confusing. Generally, you do not need to change your logging dependencies and the Spring Boot defaults work just fine.

[Tip]Tip

When you deploy your application to a servlet container or application server, logging performed via the Java Util Logging API is not routed into your application’s logs. This prevents logging performed by the container or other applications that have been deployed to it from appearing in your application’s logs.

27.1 Log Format

The default log output from Spring Boot resembles the following example:

2019-03-05 10:57:51.112  INFO 45469 --- [           main] org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine  : Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.52
2019-03-05 10:57:51.253  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.a.c.c.C.[Tomcat].[localhost].[/]       : Initializing Spring embedded WebApplicationContext
2019-03-05 10:57:51.253  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.web.context.ContextLoader            : Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 1358 ms
2019-03-05 10:57:51.698  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.b.c.e.ServletRegistrationBean        : Mapping servlet: 'dispatcherServlet' to [/]
2019-03-05 10:57:51.702  INFO 45469 --- [ost-startStop-1] o.s.b.c.embedded.FilterRegistrationBean  : Mapping filter: 'hiddenHttpMethodFilter' to: [/*]

The following items are output:

  • Date and Time: Millisecond precision and easily sortable.
  • Log Level: ERROR, WARN, INFO, DEBUG, or TRACE.
  • Process ID.
  • A --- separator to distinguish the start of actual log messages.
  • Thread name: Enclosed in square brackets (may be truncated for console output).
  • Logger name: This is usually the source class name (often abbreviated).
  • The log message.
[Note]Note

Logback does not have a FATAL level. It is mapped to ERROR.

27.2 Console Output

The default log configuration echoes messages to the console as they are written. By default, ERROR-level, WARN-level, 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]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). Doing so enables trace logging for a selection of core loggers (embedded container, Hibernate schema generation, and the whole Spring portfolio).

27.2.1 Color-coded Output

If your terminal supports ANSI, color output is used to aid readability. You can set spring.output.ansi.enabled to a supported value to override the auto-detection.

Color coding is configured by using the %clr conversion word. In its simplest form, the converter colors the output according to the log level, as shown in the following example:

%clr(%5p)

The following table describes the mapping of log levels to colors:

LevelColor

FATAL

Red

ERROR

Red

WARN

Yellow

INFO

Green

DEBUG

Green

TRACE

Green

Alternatively, you can specify the color or style that should be used by providing it as an option to the conversion. For example, to make the text yellow, use the following setting:

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

The following colors and styles are supported:

  • blue
  • cyan
  • faint
  • green
  • magenta
  • red
  • yellow

27.3 File Output

By default, Spring Boot logs only to the console and does 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:

Table 27.1. Logging properties

logging.filelogging.pathExampleDescription

(none)

(none)

 

Console only logging.

Specific file

(none)

my.log

Writes to the specified log file. Names can be an exact location or relative to the current directory.

(none)

Specific directory

/var/log

Writes spring.log to the specified directory. Names can be an exact location or relative to the current directory.


Log files rotate when they reach 10 MB and, as with console output, ERROR-level, WARN-level, and INFO-level messages are logged by default. Size limits can be changed using the logging.file.max-size property. Previously rotated files are archived indefinitely unless the logging.file.max-history property has been set.

[Note]Note

The logging system is initialized early in the application lifecycle. Consequently, logging properties are not found in property files loaded through @PropertySource annotations.

[Tip]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.

27.4 Log Levels

All the supported logging systems can have the logger levels set in the Spring Environment (for example, in application.properties) by using logging.level.<logger-name>=<level> where level is one of TRACE, DEBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, FATAL, or OFF. The root logger can be configured by using logging.level.root.

The following example shows potential logging settings in application.properties:

logging.level.root=warn
logging.level.org.springframework.web=debug
logging.level.org.hibernate=error

It’s also possible to set logging levels using environment variables. For example, LOGGING_LEVEL_ORG_SPRINGFRAMEWORK_WEB=DEBUG will set org.springframework.web to DEBUG.

[Note]Note

The above approach will only work for package level logging. Since relaxed binding always converts environment variables to lowercase, it’s not possible to configure logging for an individual class in this way. If you need to configure logging for a class, you can use the SPRING_APPLICATION_JSON variable.

27.5 Log Groups

It’s often useful to be able to group related loggers together so that they can all be configured at the same time. For example, you might commonly change the logging levels for all Tomcat related loggers, but you can’t easily remember top level packages.

To help with this, Spring Boot allows you to define logging groups in your Spring Environment. For example, here’s how you could define a “tomcat” group by adding it to your application.properties:

logging.group.tomcat=org.apache.catalina, org.apache.coyote, org.apache.tomcat

Once defined, you can change the level for all the loggers in the group with a single line:

logging.level.tomcat=TRACE

Spring Boot includes the following pre-defined logging groups that can be used out-of-the-box:

NameLoggers

web

org.springframework.core.codec, org.springframework.http, org.springframework.web, org.springframework.boot.actuate.endpoint.web, org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.ServletContextInitializerBeans

sql

org.springframework.jdbc.core, org.hibernate.SQL

27.6 Custom Log Configuration

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

You can force Spring Boot to use a particular logging system by 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]Note

Since logging is initialized before the ApplicationContext is created, it is not possible to control logging from @PropertySources in Spring @Configuration files. The only way to change the logging system or disable it entirely is via System properties.

Depending on your logging system, the following files are loaded:

Logging SystemCustomization

Logback

logback-spring.xml, logback-spring.groovy, logback.xml, or logback.groovy

Log4j2

log4j2-spring.xml or log4j2.xml

JDK (Java Util Logging)

logging.properties

[Note]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]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 when running from an 'executable jar' if at all possible.

To help with the customization, some other properties are transferred from the Spring Environment to System properties, as described in the following table:

Spring EnvironmentSystem PropertyComments

logging.exception-conversion-word

LOG_EXCEPTION_CONVERSION_WORD

The conversion word used when logging exceptions.

logging.file

LOG_FILE

If defined, it is used in the default log configuration.

logging.file.max-size

LOG_FILE_MAX_SIZE

Maximum log file size (if LOG_FILE enabled). (Only supported with the default Logback setup.)

logging.file.max-history

LOG_FILE_MAX_HISTORY

Maximum number of archive log files to keep (if LOG_FILE enabled). (Only supported with the default Logback setup.)

logging.path

LOG_PATH

If defined, it is used in the default log configuration.

logging.pattern.console

CONSOLE_LOG_PATTERN

The log pattern to use on the console (stdout). (Only supported with the default Logback setup.)

logging.pattern.dateformat

LOG_DATEFORMAT_PATTERN

Appender pattern for log date format. (Only supported with the default Logback setup.)

logging.pattern.file

FILE_LOG_PATTERN

The log pattern to use in a file (if LOG_FILE is enabled). (Only supported with the default Logback setup.)

logging.pattern.level

LOG_LEVEL_PATTERN

The format to use when rendering the log level (default %5p). (Only supported with the default Logback setup.)

PID

PID

The current process ID (discovered if possible and when not already defined as an OS environment variable).

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

[Tip]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 use Logback, you should use : as the delimiter between a property name and its default value and not use :-.

[Tip]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 contains an MDC entry for "user", if it exists, as shown in the following example.

2019-08-30 12:30:04.031 user:someone INFO 22174 --- [  nio-8080-exec-0] demo.Controller
Handling authenticated request

27.7 Logback Extensions

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

[Note]Note

Because the standard logback.xml configuration file is loaded too early, you cannot use extensions in it. You need to either use logback-spring.xml or define a logging.config property.

[Warning]Warning

The extensions cannot be used with Logback’s configuration scanning. If you attempt to do so, making changes to the configuration file results 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]]

27.7.1 Profile-specific Configuration

The <springProfile> tag lets you optionally include or exclude sections of configuration based on the active Spring profiles. Profile sections are supported anywhere within the <configuration> element. Use the name attribute to specify which profile accepts the configuration. The <springProfile> tag can contain a profile name (for example staging) or a profile expression. A profile expression allows for more complicated profile logic to be expressed, for example production & (eu-central | eu-west). Check the reference guide for more details. The following listing shows three sample profiles:

<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>

27.7.2 Environment Properties

The <springProperty> tag lets you expose properties from the Spring Environment for use within Logback. Doing so 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. However, rather than specifying a direct value, you specify the source of the property (from the Environment). If you need to store the property somewhere other than in local scope, you can use the scope attribute. If you need a fallback value (in case the property is not set in the Environment), you can use the defaultValue attribute. The following example shows how to expose properties for use within Logback:

<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]Note

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