How to enable log4j in this Grizzly/Jersey application

Question

I'm not using any XML configuration and am doing everything at run time.

My application runs and Jersey my API works, but I'm not seeing any logs being written. I expect to see something like INFO: [MyApp] Initializing log4j from [classpath:environment-${MY_ENVIRONMENT}.properties] when this application boots up to confirm it's seeing the log4j configuration.

I've avoided using log4j.properties since I want different logging configuration per my application's environment.

How can I get this application writing logs via my log configuration?

My main class is:

import com.sun.jersey.api.container.grizzly2.GrizzlyServerFactory;
import com.sun.jersey.api.core.PackagesResourceConfig;
import com.sun.jersey.api.core.ResourceConfig;
import com.sun.jersey.api.json.JSONConfiguration;
import org.glassfish.grizzly.http.server.HttpServer;
import org.glassfish.grizzly.servlet.WebappContext;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.AnnotationConfigApplicationContext;
import org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener;

...

protected static HttpServer startServer() throws IOException {
    ResourceConfig rc = new PackagesResourceConfig("com.company.product.api.resources");
    Map<String,Boolean> features = rc.getFeatures();
    features.put(JSONConfiguration.FEATURE_POJO_MAPPING, true);

    return GrizzlyServerFactory.createHttpServer(BASE_URI, rc);
}

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException {
    //Without this, ApplicationContextProvider has no context
    AnnotationConfigApplicationContext annotationCtx = new AnnotationConfigApplicationContext(Config.class);

    //The only reason this is here is because I think I need it for log4j config
    WebappContext ctx = new WebappContext("API", "/");

    //enable log4j configuration
    ctx.addListener("org.springframework.web.util.Log4jConfigListener");
    ctx.addContextInitParameter("log4jConfigLocation", "classpath:environment-${MY_ENVIRONMENT}.properties");

    //enable annotation configuration so we can avoid XML
    ctx.addContextInitParameter("contextClass", "org.springframework.web.context.support.AnnotationConfigWebApplicationContext");
    ctx.addContextInitParameter("contextConfigLocation", "com.company.product.api");

    //allow spring to do all of it's stuff
    ctx.addListener(ContextLoaderListener.class);

    HttpServer httpServer = startServer();

    System.in.read();
    httpServer.stop();
}

In environment-production.properties, all configuration is properly being used, except for log4j:

# Define the root logger with appender file
log4j.rootLogger = DEBUG, FILE

# Define the file appender
log4j.appender.FILE=org.apache.log4j.DailyRollingFileAppender
# Set the name of the file
log4j.appender.FILE.File=/var/log/productionApi/productionApi.log

# Set the immediate flush to true (default)
log4j.appender.FILE.ImmediateFlush=true

# Set the threshold to debug mode
log4j.appender.FILE.Threshold=debug

# Set the append to false, should not overwrite
log4j.appender.FILE.Append=true

# Set the DatePattern
log4j.appender.FILE.DatePattern='.' yyyy-MM-dd-a

# Define the layout for file appender
log4j.appender.FILE.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.FILE.layout.conversionPattern=%m%n

Answer 1

Based on the example, you didn't call ctx.deploy(HttpServer). If you don't do that, then the ServletContext listener you've defined won't be invoked (note: it doesn't matter if you call deploy before or after the server has started).

Answer 2

You may pass log4j.configuration system property to do the trick.

For example:

    java -Dlog4j.configuration=environment-production.properties