Enable Tomcat localhost/Catalina Log in IntelliJ IDEA

Question

I'm attempting to run a Java/Spring/Hibernate/ application using IntelliJ 13 and its built in Tomcat deployment plugin. When debugging a buddy of mine has the following logs.

I was wondering how to enable the logs that are in red, currently in my IDEA. I have tried the following solution.

Heading over to the Run/Debug Configurations Tomcat server and clicking on the log tab and enabling the logs

I appreciate any help or tips in advance. Thanks guys

Answer 1

If I am understanding your question correctly, you are not sure what to set in the "Log File Location" field of the "Edit Log File Aliases" dialog.

When you create a Tomcat Run/Debug configuration, IntelliJ IDEA creates a TOMCAT_BASE directory as {intellij_system_directory}\\tomcat\\{run_configuration_name}_{project_name} . ( TOMCAT_HOME identifies where the binary files are and TOMCAT_BASE defines where an instance of tomcat is. Sometimes they are the same. In this case, they are not.) The {intellij_system_directory} directory is usually in ~/.IntelliJIdea13/system where ~ is your home directory ( C:\\Users\\{username} on windows). See the document Directories used by the IDE to store settings, caches, plugins and logs . You can also go to Help > Show Log File which will pen the directory {intellij_system_directory}\\logs . Just go up one directory and then into tomcat .

Just set the path to the appropriate logs directory. You can use ant file patterns to deal with dates. For example, for my Tomcat Run\\Debug configuration named "My Web App" in "My Project", to view the catalina.log file, I would set the path to C:\\Users\\Mark\\.IntelliJIdea13\\system\\tomcat\\My_Web_App_My_Project\\logs\\catalina.*.log . The * wild characters the date stamp in the log name and IDEA will always open the latest/newest one.

Also take a look at this post -- https://devnet.jetbrains.com/message/5529312#5529315 -- of mine for information on a minor bug with naming of the tomcat base directories.