log4j-s3-search

• Log4j 1.x is no longer supported. If you're still using Log4j 1.x, PLEASE consider upgrading to Log4j 2.x. Log4j 1.x is deprecated, and there are vulnerabilities with it that nobody will fix.
  • If you REALLY need to continue using Log4j, you may use release 3.7.0. But really: upgrade to Log4j2 for your own sake.

A Log4j appender implementation that will collect log events into a staging buffer up to a configured size to then publish to external stores such as:

• AWS S3 for remote storage/archive.
• Azure Blob Storage for remote storage/archive.
• Google Cloud Storage for remote storage/archive.
• Apache Solr for search.
• Elasticsearch for search.

All external stores above are optional (although to be of any use at least one should be used). If no configuration is found for S3, for instance, the appender will not attempt to publish to S3. Likewise, if there is not configuration for Apache Solr, the appender will not attempt to publish to Solr.

Prerequisites

The packages in MVN Repo should work as long as you're on the correct Java version (see below).

Release / tag	JSDK version
2.x and earlier	Java SDK (JDK) 8
5.2.1 and earlier	Java SDK (JDK) 11
5.2.2+	OpenJDK 21

Packages

The project is broken up into several packages:

• appender-core -- Log4j version-agnostic logic that deals with maintaining the log staging buffer and publishing to external stores. However, you typically do not need to explicitly depend on this since one of the following will.
• appender-log4j2 -- Log4j 2.x binding code that, together with appender-core, will allow client code to use the project with Log4j 2.x.

Usage

• Add appender-log4j2 into your dependencies. (See appender-log4j2-sample from log4j-s3-search-samples for an example of how it's done.)

Maven Dependencies

Please substitute in the latest version in your case (so I don't have to keep updating this README.md).

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.therealvan</groupId>
    <artifactId>appender-log4j2</artifactId>
    <version>4.0.0</version>
</dependency>

Obsolete versions

Please ignore the non-semver versions 2.0 and 0.3.0.

Running the sample programs

Please consult the log4j-s3-search-samples project for sample programs using this library for both Log4j and Log4j2.

Configuration

General

In addition to the typical appender configuration (such as layout, Threshold, etc.), these common properties control the appender in general:

• stagingBufferSize -- the number of entries to collect for a batch before publishing (default is 2000).
• stagingBufferAge -- (optional) if specified, the number of minutes to wait before publishing a batch. If used, this parameter will override the condition set by stagingBufferSize. The value must be >= 1.
• hostName -- (optional) a string to use to indicate where this log comes from. If this is not configured, by default it uses the host name where the logger is run. When set, this cannot be a blank string, or it will be ignored.
• tags -- (optional) comma-separated tokens to associate to the log entries (used mainly for search filtering). Examples:
  • production,webserver
  • qa,database

DO NOT specify both stagingBufferSize and stagingBufferAge. Choose the option that works best for you. Because there is some overhead on preparing and upload of logs, if you specify too small a value for these parameters, the logger may not have enough time to do its work and eventually will cause your process to fail.

How small is too small? It really depends on how often your program logs. In general, I would suggest a minimum of 500 for stagingBufferSize and 60 seconds for stagingBufferAge.

A sample snippet from a sample log4j2.xml to publish whenever 10 events are collected:

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
      <PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss,SSS} [%t] %-5p %c{36} - %m%n"/>
      <verbose>false</verbose>

      <!-- Examples of optional tags to attach to entries (applicable only to SOLR & Elasticsearch)-->
      <tags>TEST,ONE,TWO;THREE</tags>

      <!-- Number of messages (lines of log) to buffer before publishing out -->
      <stagingBufferSize>10</stagingBufferSize>

      <s3Bucket>mybucket</s3Bucket>
      <s3Path>logs/exampleApplication2/</s3Path>
      <s3Region>us-west-2</s3Region>
      ...
      

or, if a time-based publishing policy is desired (e.g. publish every 15 minutes):

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
      ...

      <!-- Number of messages (lines of log) to buffer before publishing out -->
      <stagingBufferAge>15</stagingBufferAge>
      ...

S3

These properties (please use your own values) control how the logs will be stored in S3:

• s3Bucket -- the S3 bucket to use. The logger will attempt to create this bucket if it doesn't already exist.
• s3Path -- the path to the uploaded files (S3 key prefix under the hood)

These properties determine how to connect to S3:

• s3Region -- the AWS region to use (e.g. "us-west-2").
• s3ServiceEndpoint -- the service endpoint to use instead of the default.
• s3SigningRegion -- the region to use for signing requests.

Use either:

• s3Region or
• s3ServiceEndpoint and s3SigningRegion

but not all three simultaneously. You will get an error from AWS if you use all three.

• s3PathStyleAccess -- "true" to use the older Path Style Access/URL when contacting S3 (see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/VirtualHosting.html#path-style-access)

AWS credentials are required to interact with S3. NOTE that the recommended way of configuring the credentials is:

1. using roles assigned to instance profiles (when working with EC2 instances) or
2. creating a credentials file on the computer running the program as %USERPROFILE%\.aws\credentials (Windows) or ~/.aws/credentials (see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/sdk-for-java/v2/developer-guide/credentials.html#credentials-file-format)

If the above methods are not possible for your situation, these properties can also be overridden in the optional Log4j configuration:

• s3AwsKey and s3AwsSecret -- access and secret keys.
• s3AwsSessionToken -- session token for short-lived credentials.

When these properties are present in the configuration, they take precedence over the default sources in the credential chain as described earlier.

A sample snippet (with the optional s3AwsKey and s3AwsSecret properties set):

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
        ...
      <s3Bucket>mybucket</s3Bucket>
      <s3Path>logs/exampleApplication2/</s3Path>
      <s3Region>us-west-2</s3Region>
      <s3AwsKey>CMSADEFHASFHEUCBEOERUE</s3AwsKey>
      <s3AwsSecret>ASCNEJAERKE/SDJFHESNCFSKERTFSDFJESF</s3AwsSecret>
      ....

The final S3 key used in the bucket follows the format:

{s3Path}/yyyyMMddHH24mmss_{hostname}_{UUID w/ "-" stripped}

e.g.

logs/myApplication/20150327081000_localhost_6187f4043f2449ccb4cbd3a7930d1130

Content configurations

• s3Compression -- if set to "true," then contents will be GZIP'ed before publishing into S3
• s3KeyGzSuffixEnabled -- if set to "true," then the s3 key will have a .gz suffix when s3Compression is enabled. (If s3Compression is not "true," this is ignored.)
• s3SseKeyType -- if set to "SSE_S3," then contents published will be flagged to use SSE-S3 encryption (see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/UsingServerSideEncryption.html)
• s3StorageClass -- the S3 storage class associated with sent objects (e.g. "standard", "glacier"), if not set then "standard" storage class will be used as default (see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/userguide/storage-class-intro.html)

Azure Blob

These properties (please use your own values) control how the logs will be stored in Azure Blob Storage:

• azureBlobContainer -- the storage container name.
• azureBlobNamePrefix -- the prefix for the blob name.
• azureBlobCompressionEnabled -- if set to "true," then contents will be GZIP'ed before publishing.
• azureStorageConnectionString -- optional value for the connection string for connecting to Azure. See note below.
• azureBlobNameGzSuffixEnabled -- if set to "true," then the blob name will have a .gz suffix when azureBlobCompressionEnabled is enabled. (If azureBlobCompressionEnabled is not "true," this is ignored.)

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
        ...
        <azureBlobContainer>my-container</azureBlobContainer>
        <azureBlobNamePrefix>logs/myApplication/</azureBlobNamePrefix>
        
        <!-- optional -->
        <azureBlobCompressionEnabled>false</azureBlobCompressionEnabled>
        <azureStorageConnectionString>DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=...;EndpointSuffix=core.windows.net</azureStorageConnectionString>

Just as the case of S3, the final blob name used in the container follows the format:

{azureBlobNamePrefix}/yyyyMMddHH24mmss_{hostname}_{UUID w/ "-" stripped}

e.g.

logs/myApplication/20150327081000_localhost_6187f4043f2449ccb4cbd3a7930d1130

Notes:

• See https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/storageservices/Naming-and-Referencing-Containers--Blobs--and-Metadata for rules on names.
• From various examples online, the preferred way to establish the Azure connection string is to set the environment variable AZURE_STORAGE_CONNECTION_STRING on the hosts running your code. However, you can also set the azureStorageConnectionString property for local testing.

See Azure Storage connection strings for more info on connection strings.

Google Cloud Storage

These properties (please use your own values) control how the logs will be stored in GCP Storage service:

• gcpStorageBucket -- the storage bucket name.
• gcpStorageBlobNamePrefix -- the prefix for the blob name.
• gcpStorageCompressionEnabled -- if set to "true," then contents will be GZIP'ed before publishing. The default is "false."
• gcpStorageBlobNameGzSuffixEnabled -- if set to "true," then the blob name will have a .gz suffix when gcpStorageCompressionEnabled is enabled. (If gcpStorageCompressionEnabled is not "true," this is ignored.)

Just as in the case with AWS S3, there is an extensive authentication process and list of options. This tool will assume the running process has the necessary authentication setup done.

While working on this, for example, I downloaded my service account's JSON key file and set the environment variable GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS to the full path to the file. This allowed my programs using the Store API to work without doing any specific authentication calls.

A sample snippet from log4j2.xml:

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
        ...
        <gcpStorageBucket>my-bucket</gcpStorageBucket>
        <gcpStorageBlobNamePrefix>logs/myApplication/</gcpStorageBlobNamePrefix>
        
        <!-- optional -->
        <gcpStorageCompressionEnabled>false</gcpStorageCompressionEnabled>

Just as the other cases, the final blob name used in the bucket follows the format:

{gcpStorageBlobNamePrefix}/yyyyMMddHH24mmss_{hostname}_{UUID w/ "-" stripped}

e.g.

logs/myApplication/20150327081000_localhost_6187f4043f2449ccb4cbd3a7930d1130

Advanced Cloud Storage Configuration

Dynamic Path/Prefix Pattern

Normally, static values are used for path/prefix for the cloud storage destination. An example is a file-path-like string:

logs/messages/myapp/

This will cause published logs to look like:

logs/message/myall/....

However, there is a limited support for template expansion (currently only the datetime). So it is possible to specify a path like:

logs/messages/%d{yyyy_MM_dd_HH_mm_ss}/myapp

The above will tell the cloud storage publishers to dynamically adjust the path/prefix for the destination of the blobs published using the same syntax used for PatternLayout.

An uploaded blob with the configuration above may look like:

logs/messages/2020_08_23_22_04_34/myapp/....

Note that, in the above example, the time at which the publish was done (e.g. 2020-08-23 10:04:34 PM) was dynamically injected into the path according to the pattern specified. As more logs are published, each publish will have a different path/prefix because each of these publishes will be done at different times.

Solr

There is only one property for Solr: the REST endpoint to the core/collection:

• solrUrl -- the URL to core/collection

A sample snippet:

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
        ...
        <solrUrl>http://localhost:8983/solr/log-events/</solrUrl>

Elasticsearch

There are four properties for Elasticsearch, all but one are optional:

• elasticsearchCluster -- the cluster name (default if "elasticsearch")

• elasticsearchIndex -- the index in which to store the log data (default is "logindex")

• elasticsearchType -- the type of a log data entry (default is "log")

• elasticsearchHosts -- comma-delimited list of host:port values. There is no default; this property is required.

  The scheme/protocol is http:// by default, but you can override this by explicitly including it in the value (e.g. https://localhost:9200).

• elasticSearchPublishHelperClass -- optional fully-qualified name of the class (on the runtime classpath, of course) implementing IElasticsearchPublishHelper that will perform publishing to Elasticsearch

<Configuration status="INFO">
  <Appenders>
    <Log4j2Appender name="Log4j2Appender">
        ...
        <elasticsearchCluster>elasticsearch</elasticsearchCluster>
        <elasticsearchIndex>logindex</elasticsearchIndex>
        <elasticsearchType>log</elasticsearchType>
        <elasticsearchHosts>elasticsearchHosts=localhost:9300</elasticsearchHosts>

Solr Integration

A new core should be created for the log events. The setting up of Apache Solr and the setting up of a core are outside the scope of this file. However, a sample template for a schema.xml that can be used is included in this repo as /misc/solr/schema.xml.

Each log event will be indexed as a Solr document. The "id" property for each document will follow the format:

yyyyMMddHH24mmss_{host name}_{UUID w/ "-" stripped}-{host name}-{sequence}

e.g.

20150327081000_mycomputer_6187f4043f2449ccb4cbd3a7930d1130-mycomputer-0000000000000012

NOTE that this ID is formatted such that one can cross-reference a document to the S3 batch from which the corresponding log event can be found.

String id = solrDoc.getFieldValue("id").toString();
String s3Key = id.substring(0, id.indexOf("-"));

Elasticsearch Integration

A new index should be created for the log events. The setting up of Elasticsearch and the index are outside the scope of this file. However, a sample template for the index schema that can be used is included in this repo as /misc/elasticsearch/logindex.json. This schema should be installed before any log entries are added. A typical PUT to /<elasticsearch host>:9200/<index> with the body of the JSON should be sufficient.

Each log event will be indexed as a document. The "id" property for each document will follow the format:

yyyyMMddHH24mmss_{host name}_{UUID w/ "-" stripped}-{host name}-{sequence}

e.g.

20150327081000_mycomputer_6187f4043f2449ccb4cbd3a7930d1130-mycomputer-0000000000000012

NOTE that this ID is formatted such that one can cross-reference a document to the S3 batch from which the corresponding log event can be found.

String id = solrDoc.getFieldValue("id").toString();
String s3Key = id.substring(0, id.indexOf("-"));

Logging from log4j-s3-search

The appender and components of this library also logs events under the logger named "com.van.logging.VansLogger." To prevent logs of this logger from polluting the clients' logs, these logs will be ignored by the code (LoggingEventCache) when forwarding to various log publishers.

To see these logs (e.g. to debug), you can add a logger config to dump to console (or any other appender):

  <Appenders>
    <Console name="ConsoleAppender" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
      <PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss,SSS} [%t] %-5p %c{36} - %m%n"/>
    </Console>
    ...
  </Appenders>
  
  <Loggers>
    <Logger name="com.van.logging" level="debug" additivity="false">
      <AppenderRef ref="ConsoleAppender" />
    </Logger>
    ...
  </Loggers>
  ....

An example of this can be seen in the example repo log4j-s3-search-samples.