log4j2 monitorInterval using spring cloud config server - log4j2

Question

I'm trying to read the log4j2 configuration from config server during application startup.
bootstrap.yml
spring:
application:
name: loggingApp
cloud:
config:
uri: http://localhost:8888
logging:
config: http://localhost:8888/loggingApp/raw/master/loggingApp-log4j2-DEV.xml
The application seems to get the configuration properly during start up as I see the appropriate log levels. However, the automatic configuration doesn't seem to work. When I change the log level of the loggers, looks like it didn't read the updated config from config server after the monitorInterval has passed. I've set the monitorInterval to 10 seconds. As per the documentation the minimum interval should be 5 seconds. If I point to a file on local drive, instead of the config server url, it is working fine. I tried using -Dlog4j.configurationFile as jvm arg as well as spring configuration logging.config to see if one of those work, but none worked.
https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/configuration.html#AutomaticReconfiguration
https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/log4j-spring-cloud-config/log4j-spring-cloud-config-client/index.html
I'm using spring-boot 2.2.5.RELEASE, log4j2 2.13.1 and spring-cloud Hoxton.SR3 versions.
This is how the git repo looks like where config files are being read from

Answer 1

I too tried the same and it did not work. It seems the <Configuration monitorInternal="10"> property would only have worked if we use log4j.configurationFile property to load the log4j2 config file as mentioned in Apache's Log4j Spring Cloud Configuration Guide .
I used the spring actuator refresh approach to accomplish this task. However this does not reload the configs on its own. So there is work around to meet the required ends. Create a scheduler in your spring application that hits the actuator refresh url on specified intervals as below
#Component
#EnableScheduling
public class RefreshScheduler {
#Autowired
private RestTemplate restTemplate;
#Scheduled(fixedRate = 60000)
private void postRefreshEndPoint() {
HttpHeaders headers = new HttpHeaders();
headers.setContentType(MediaType.APPLICATION_JSON);
HttpEntity<String> entity = new HttpEntity<>(headers);
restTemplate.postForEntity("http://localhost:8080/actuator/refresh", entity, String.class);
}
}
This is surely a very dirty way of somehow achieving the required functionality. It works though :)
As a side note : Isn't it better to not have automatic refresh? My argument would be : It's possible developers by mistake ( or just for fun ) do changes to the configs in GIT. And this will lead to a change in the live application in prodcution.
However if we have the actuator refresh URL as mandatory for refreshing the spring context, this can be stopped. Only authorized memebers from the production/operations team would have access to this refresh url and they can decide whether to actually refresh the production spring beans when a commit on GIT has been done.