View this page in the latest version of Appian. Customizing Log Output Share Share via LinkedIn Reddit Email Copy Link Print On This Page Overview This page describes Appian logging configuration settings and what changes you can make to capture more detailed information about application behavior. Timestamps listed in the Appian log files are recorded in Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). For more information about Log4j, see the Apache Log4j2 documentation. Application logging To configure logging for the Appian application, do one of the following: Make your desired setting changes in the following file: 1 <APPIAN_HOME>/deployment/web.war/WEB-INF/resources/appian_log4j.properties Create or update a custom log.properties file. See also: Custom Logging Configuration Files. Custom settings set in the appian_log4j.properties file are reset to Appian defaults when you patch or upgrade your installation. Keep a backup of your appian_log4j.properties file so you can restore your custom settings after upgrading. Custom log.properties files are retained during upgrades. Search server logging To configure search server logging for the Appian application: Make your desired setting changes in the following file: 1 <APPIAN_HOME>/search-server/conf/log4j2.properties`. Custom settings set in the log4j2.properties file are reset to Appian defaults when you patch or upgrade your installation. Keep a backup of your log4j2.properties file so you can restore your custom settings after upgrading. Log file location The directory where log files are written is controlled by the following property, in custom.properties: 1 conf.suite.AE_LOGS=<install_dir>/logs/ See also: Custom Configurations Changing logging levels The following table provides a list of the different logging levels that you can specify for each component and their descriptions. Logging Level Description DEBUG All informational events that occur within the package being logged INFO Informational messages that highlight application progress WARN Potentially harmful situations ERROR All error messages that occur when the application is running FATAL Severe events that could cause the application to abort When a logger is configured to output log entries at a certain level, it also writes any log entries of greater importance, as defined above. For instance, if it is set to WARN, the logger also outputs ERROR and FATAL log entries. If it is set to DEBUG, the logger writes all entries. During development, we recommend that you raise the logging level to INFO or WARN. In production increased logging can negatively impact system performance, so we recommend that you lower the logging level to ERROR once in production. Common logging changes HTML filtering Certain HTML tags and tag attributes are forbidden as inputs and are filtered out at runtime. When a forbidden input is encountered, a message like the following is logged. 1 com.appiancorp.security.util.StringSecurityUtils - The HTML tag contained an attribute that we could not process. The request attribute has been filtered out, but the tag is still in place. The value of the attribute was ... These messages are logged when the following logger in appian_log4j.properties is set to the WARN level. By default, it is set to ERROR. 1 log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.security.util.StringSecurityUtils=ERROR Performance logging Engine Performance is automatically logged at the INFO level, as listed in log.properties. You can enable database performance logging and in log4j.properties, including Tempo database performance logging. See also: Performance Monitoring Log Files. Database integration details To log the details of the Write to Data Store smart services and Query Rules, add the following loggers: 1 2 3 4 # Output SQL statements log4j.logger.org.hibernate.SQL=DEBUG # Output param values within SQL statements log4j.logger.org.hibernate.type=TRACE To view the calls made by the Query Database Node, add the following logger: 1 log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.process.runtime.activities.QueryRdbmsActivity=DEBUG Debugging CDTs created by plug-ins When creating custom data types using a Java object in a plug-in, you can review the XSD being generated by the Java object by adding the following logger to log4j.properties: 1 log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.common.xml.JaxbXsdGenerator=DEBUG See also: Custom Data Types from Java Object Customizing logging The appian_log4j.properties file allows administrators to set up customized logging for different components of Appian. Creating a custom logger You can create customized loggers in the appian_log4j.properties file by entering the package you want logged using the following pattern: 1 log4j.logger.<package_name>=<logging_level> For example, to add a custom logger at the DEBUG level for the portal component only, type the following statement in the appian_log4j.properties file: 1 log4j.logger.com.appiancorp.ap2=DEBUG For each logger, you can configure the logging level. (The output formats, or appenders, vary according to property file used.) You can also configure groups of loggers using parent packages. For instance, if you configure com.appiancorp.common, then its log level applies to any classes in that package and any of its subpackages (recursively). log4j uses the most specific configuration available for a particular logger, so if both com.appiancorp.common and com.appiancorp.common.struts.BaseAction are configured, it uses the latter's configuration because it is more specific. Appenders In the appian_log4j.properties file, appenders are used to define the output formats of the log file messages. The appenders are listed in the root logger, which uses the following convention: 1 log4j.rootLogger=<LOGGING_LEVEL>, <APPENDER_NAME_1>, <APPENDER_NAME_2> In the following example, the root logger statement writes ERROR level messages (and above) using two appenders (console for and a named text file appender for ): 1 log4j.rootLogger=ERROR, CONSOLE, WORK_POLLER This sample appender (named the WORK_POLLER appender) writes messages to a text file named work-poller.log. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ###### WORK_POLLER appender log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER.layout.ConversionPattern=%d{ABSOLUTE} %-5p [%c{1}] %m%n log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER=org.apache.log4j.RollingFileAppender log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER.File=${AE_LOGS}/work-poller.log log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER.MaxFileSize=10MB log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER.MaxBackupIndex=<b>1000</b> Changing the logging directory or filename The log file name and path is determined by the log4j.appender.<APPENDER_NAME>.File property (in <APPIAN_HOME>/deployment/web.war/WEB-INF/resources/appian_log4j.properties). In the prior example, the log4j.appender.WORK_POLLER.File property is set to write to the work-poller.log file in the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/ directory. You can modify this property to write to a different directory and or filename. Changing log syntax The pattern of the log message is defined in the log4j.appender.<APPENDER_NAME>.layout.ConversionPattern property. You can modify this property based on various options defined in the Log4j documentation. See also: Log4j Documentation. Backup and remove log files Appian stores its log files in the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/ directory. The maximum size for any log file is determined by the log4j.appender.<APPENDER_NAME>.MaxFileSize property, which has been set to 10MB. Modify this property to increase or decrease the maximum size of the file. Each time the size of the file exceeds what is allowed, a new file is created. The number of files that are created are limited by the log4j.appender.<APPENDER_NAME>.MaxBackupIndex property. The default value of this property is 1000. Log file maintenance is handled by the cleanup script: <APPIAN_HOME>/server/_scripts/cleanup.bat (.sh). See also: Data Maintenance Application engine logging The log.properties file is used to configure logging for the Appian Real-time database processes in Appian. It is located within the <APPIAN_HOME>/server/_conf/logging/ directory. This properties file uses the same configuration settings and conventions as the appian_log4j.properties file - and is configured in the same manner. The log entries are written to the <APPIAN_HOME>/logs/ directory. Custom logging configuration files To customize logging for a specific engine: Create a complete duplicate of the appian_log.properties configuration file, in the same directory. Name the file log_db_YY.properties according to the below table. Edit the log file settings as needed. The following table describes the logging property file names that can be used to customize logging for an individual application engine. Service Name Custom Server Logging File Channels log_db_CH.properties Collaboration Statistics log_db_CS.properties Collaboration log_db_CO.properties Notifications Email log_db_NE.properties Notifications Service log_db_NO.properties Personalization log_db_PE.properties Portal log_db_PO.properties Discussion Forums log_db_DF.properties Process-Analytics log_db_PA.properties Process-Execution log_db_PX.properties Process-Design log_db_PD.properties Custom log files generated Engine Server Server Log File Name (included ID and timestamp ) Gateway Log File Name Channels db_CH1_<date>_<number>.log channels.log Collaboration Statistics db_CS1_<date>_<number>.log download-stats.log Collaboration db_CO1_<date>_<number>.log content.log Notifications Email db_NE1_<date>_<number>.log notifications-email.log Notifications db_NO1_<date>_<number>.log notifications.log Personalization db_PE1_<date>_<number>.log groups.log Portal db_PO1_<date>_<number>.log portal.log Discussion Forums db_DF1_<date>_<number>.log forums.log Process-Analytics db_PA00001_<date>.log db_PA00011_<date>.log db_PA00021_<date>.log db_PA000n1_<date>.log analytics00.log analytics01.log analytics02.log analyticsnn.log Process-Execution db_PX001_<date>_<number>.log db_PX011_<date>_<number>.log db_PX021_<date>_<number>.log db_PX0n1_<date>_<number>.log execution00.log execution01.log execution02.log executionnn.log Process-Design db_PD1_<date>_<number>.log process-design.log Feedback Was this page helpful? 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