Logging

Introduction
Orbeon Forms uses log4j for logging and has a logging configuration file under WEB-INF/resources/config/log4j.xml.
Selecting a specific file path
By default, logging information is output to a file path relative to the directory where you start your application server. This is usually not what you want, as that makes it hard to know where the log file is.
<appender name="SingleFileAppender" class="org.apache.log4j.FileAppender">
    <param name="File" value="../logs/orbeon.log"/>
    <param name="Append" value="false" />
    <param name="Encoding" value="UTF-8"/>
    <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
        <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d{ISO8601} %-5p %c{1} %x - %m%n"/>
    </layout>
</appender>
You can change this by modifying the File parameter and set an absolute file path to the log file:
<appender name="SingleFileAppender" class="org.apache.log4j.FileAppender">
    <param name="File" value="/path/to/logs/orbeon.log"/>
    <param name="Append" value="false" />
    <param name="Encoding" value="UTF-8"/>
    <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
        <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d{ISO8601} %-5p %c{1} %x - %m%n"/>
    </layout>
</appender>
Note that on Windows, you must use forward slashes:
<appender name="SingleFileAppender" class="org.apache.log4j.FileAppender">
    <param name="File" value="C:/My Path/To/Logs/orbeon.log"/>
    <param name="Append" value="false" />
    <param name="Encoding" value="UTF-8"/>
    <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
        <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d{ISO8601} %-5p %c{1} %x - %m%n"/>
    </layout>
</appender>
The benefit of changing this configuration is that you know exactly where the file is stored. This can be really handy when trying to troubleshoot issues.
Reducing the amount of logging
By default, Orbeon Forms logs quite a lot of information at the info level. In case this is too much, you can set the level to warning or even error:
<appender name="SingleFileAppender" class="org.apache.log4j.FileAppender">
    <param name="File" value="/path/to/logs/orbeon.log"/>
    <param name="Append" value="false" />
    <param name="Encoding" value="UTF-8"/>
    <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
        <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d{ISO8601} %-5p %c{1} %x - %m%n"/>
    </layout>
    <filter class="org.apache.log4j.varia.LevelRangeFilter">
        <param name="LevelMin" value="error"/>
    </filter>
</appender>
See also
​XForms logging​
​Relational database logging​
Installation
Tomcat
Last updated 6 months ago