log4j2 appender talking to sql server database - log4j2

Question

This URL
https://logging.apache.org/log4j/log4j-2.0/manual/appenders.html
has this example:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Configuration status="error">
<Appenders>
<JDBC name="databaseAppender" tableName="dbo.application_log">
<DataSource jndiName="java:/comp/env/jdbc/LoggingDataSource" />
<Column name="eventDate" isEventTimestamp="true" />
<Column name="level" pattern="%level" />
<Column name="logger" pattern="%logger" />
<Column name="message" pattern="%message" />
<Column name="exception" pattern="%ex{full}" />
</JDBC>
</Appenders>
<Loggers>
<Root level="warn">
<AppenderRef ref="databaseAppender"/>
</Root>
</Loggers>
</Configuration>
When I try to wire up to a sqlserver database......
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Configuration>
<Appenders>
<JDBC name="SQLServerAppender" tableName="dbo.LogEntry">
<DataSource jndiName="jdbc:sqlserver://MyMachine\\MyInstance:1433;databaseName=LoggingDB;applicationName=myappname;integratedSecurity=true;" />
<Column name="EntryDateUtc" isEventTimestamp="true" />
<Column name="LOGGER" pattern="%C" />
<Column name="Level" pattern="%level" />
<Column name="Message" pattern="%m" />
<Column name="UserName" pattern="%x" />
<Column name="Priority" pattern="%p" />
<Column name="ElapsedMilliseconds" pattern="%r" />
<Column name="ThreadName" pattern="%t" />
<Column name="ThrowableMessage" pattern="%throwable " />
</JDBC>
I get errors like:
ERROR No ConnectionSource provided: connectionSource
ERROR Could not create plugin of type class org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.db.jdbc.JdbcAppender for element JDBC org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.ConfigurationException: Arguments given for element JDBC are invalid: field 'connectionSource' has invalid value 'null'
How do I set up a connection string in the xml-configuration to talk to sqlserver?
Even though it doesn't match the documentation, I tried this:
<Appenders>
<JDBC name="SQLServerAppender" tableName="dbo.LogEntry">
<ConnectionSource jndiName="jdbc:sqlserver
It didn't work of course.
What is the magic syntax sugar?? #help
Thanks.

Answer 1

The value of DataSource jndiName is not a SQL Server connection string. If you want to use a SQL Server connection string then put in Log4J configuration put something like:
<appender name="SQLServer" class="org.apache.log4j.jdbc.JDBCAppender">
<param name="url" value="jdbc:sqlserver://MyMachine\\MyInstance:1433;databaseName=LoggingDB;applicationName=myappname;"/>
<param name="driver" value="com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerDriver"/>
<param name="user" value="user_id"/>
<param name="password" value="password"/>
<param name="sql" value="INSERT INTO LOG4J_TABLE VALUES('%x','%d','%C','%p','%m')"/>
<layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout"></layout>
</appender>
<logger name="log4j.rootLogger" additivity="false">
<level value="DEBUG"/>
<appender-ref ref="SQLServer"/>
</logger>
Which will write to a table that you must have created previously like:
CREATE TABLE LOG4J_TABLE (
User_Id VARCHAR(20) NOT NULL,
Date_Stamp DATETIME NOT NULL,
Logger VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,
Level VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
Message VARCHAR(8000) NOT NULL
)
Note that you can´t use integratedSecurity=true straightforward from Java but must specify the user + password.

Answer 2

I think the problem is that JNDI is not enabled.
This is my configuration log4j2.xml:
<bean id="dataSourceProxy" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.TransactionAwareDataSourceProxy">
<constructor-arg ref="dataSource"/>
</bean>
<bean name="transactionManager" class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DataSourceTransactionManager">
<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSourceProxy"/>
</bean>
<bean id="jdbcTemplate" class="xx.com.xxxxx.framework.database.xxxxxJDBCTemplate">
<constructor-arg ref="dataSourceProxy"/>
</bean>
<bean id="DBSession" class="xx.com.xxxxx.framework.database.DBConnectionManager" lazy-init="true">
<constructor-arg type="java.lang.String" value="DBSession"/>
<constructor-arg ref="dataSourceProxy"/>
<constructor-arg ref="transactionManager"/>
<property name="template" ref="jdbcTemplate"/>
</bean>
It worked normally before we had upgraded log4j to log4j2. After upgrading, there was an error output from my weblogic console:
ERROR Could not create plugin of type class org.apache.logging.log4j.core.appender.db.jdbc.JdbcAppender for element JDBC org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.ConfigurationException: Arguments given for element JDBC are invalid: field 'connectionSource' has invalid value 'null'
at org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.plugins.util.PluginBuilder.injectFields(PluginBuilder.java:210)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.plugins.util.PluginBuilder.build(PluginBuilder.java:121)
at org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.AbstractConfiguration.createPluginObject(AbstractConfiguration.java:1120)
....
According to Apache documentation ,
a Log4j JDBC Appender configured with a DataSource is disabled by default. You may try to add java option -Dlog4j2.enableJndiJdbc=true to use JNDI's java protocol.
When we added set JAVA_OPTIONS=-Dlog4j2.enableJndiJdbc=true into our weblogic, the error was gone.
I hope it is helpful for you.