Logback Appender for RESTFull

Logback (http://logback.qos.ch/) is the big brother of popular log4j which is getting more support from the development community. 

By default Logback does not support RESTFull access

What needs to be done

• Implementation of custom log appender to send data to remote server 

public class RestFullLogbackAppender extends AppenderBase<ILoggingEvent> {
    String url;
    public String getUrl() {
        return url;
    }
    public void setUrl(String url) {
        this.url = url;
    }
    @Override
    protected void append(ILoggingEvent event) {
        sendToTrackingServer(event.getlogMessage());
    }
    private boolean sendToTrackingServer(String logMessage) {
        DefaultHttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient();
        if (logMessage != null || logMessage.length() > 1) {
            HttpPost request = new HttpPost(url);
            StringEntity params;
            try {
                params = new StringEntity(logMessage);
                request.addHeader("content-type", "application/json");
                request.setEntity(params);
                httpclient.execute(request);
            } catch (UnsupportedEncodingException e) {
            } catch (ClientProtocolException e) {
            } catch (IOException e) {
            }
        }
        return true;
    }
}

• Implementation of custom log maker 

public class CustomLogMaker extends AbstractMatcherFilter<ILoggingEvent> {

    Marker markerToMatch;   

    public void start() {

        if (this.markerToMatch != null) {

            super.start();

        } else {

            addError(String.format("The marker property must be set for [%s]", getName()));

        }

    }

    public void setMarker(String markerStr) {

        if (markerStr != null) {

            markerToMatch = MarkerFactory.getMarker(markerStr);

        }

    }

    @Override

    public FilterReply decide(ILoggingEvent event) {

        Marker marker = event.getMarker();

        if (!isStarted()) {

            return FilterReply.NEUTRAL;

        }

        if (marker == null) {

            return onMismatch;

        }

        if (markerToMatch.contains(marker)) {

            return onMatch;

        }

        return onMismatch;

    }

}

• Add following appender to  logback.xml 

<appender name="REMOTE"  class="com.boundry.logback.RestFullLogbackAppender">   

    <filter class="com.boundry.logback.CustomLogMaker">

        <marker>REST_LOGGER</marker>

        <onMatch>ACCEPT</onMatch>

        <onMismatch>DENY</onMismatch>

    </filter>

    <url>http://localhost:8080/boundry/logging</url>

</appender>

• Add log maker 

public class RestFullLogMarkers {

   public static final Marker SEND_TO_LOG_SERVER =             MarkerFactory.getMarker("REST_LOGGER");

}

• Create a Rest with SpringMVC

@RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.POST, value = { "/logging" })

public @ResponseBody String postLogger(@RequestBody String log,HttpServletRequest request) throws IOException {

String logMessage = log;

//TODO: Write to the server

return "Log Message received at " + new Date();

}

• How to use the new REST Logger

private static final Logger logger = LoggerFactory.getLogger(MyBoundry.class);

...

log.info(LogMarkers.SEND_TO_LOG_SERVER ,"Hello World");