Why is my windows service not logging anything? - windows-services

Question

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,
log4net" />
<sectionGroup name="applicationSettings" type="System.Configuration.ApplicationSettingsGroup, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" >
<section name="Settings" type="System.Configuration.ClientSettingsSection, System, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089" requirePermission="false" />
</sectionGroup>
</configSections>
<system.serviceModel>
<!-- Redacted -->
</system.serviceModel>
<log4net debug="true">
<appender name="RollingLogFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
<lockingModel type="log4net.Appender.FileAppender+MinimalLock"/>
<file value="logs\" />
<datePattern value="'Proxy_'dd.MM.yyyy'.log'" />
<staticLogFileName value="false" />
<appendToFile value="true" />
<rollingStyle value="Composite" />
<maxSizeRollBackups value="10" />
<maximumFileSize value="5MB" />
<layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
<conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
</layout>
</appender>
<root>
<priority value="ALL" />
<appender-ref ref="RollingLogFileAppender" />
</root>
<category name="Client.log">
<priority value="ALL" />
</category>
</log4net>
<applicationSettings>
<!-- Redacted -->
</applicationSettings>
<startup><supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.0"/></startup></configuration>
I have the above config for my windows service when it's installed, and I'm initializing my logger like so in the Progam.cs file on the service that I'm installing:
static void Main()
{
XmlConfigurator.Configure();
_logger.Debug("ProxyServerService Started.");
ServiceBase[] ServicesToRun;
ServicesToRun = new ServiceBase[]
{
new ProxyServerService()
};
ServiceBase.Run(ServicesToRun);
_logger.Debug("ProxyServerService Terminated.");
}
When I use pretty much the same configuration in an application that communicates with this service it creates a log directory and writes logs to that directory. But when I run the service nothing happens.

Answer 1

Turns out that the reason I couldn't see the logs is because I'd configured the logger the log in the active directory, which is Windows\system32 and windows wouldn't let me do that.
I changed the following line:
<file value="logs\" />
To:
<file value="C:\AppName\logs\" />
And it works fine.