Log4j2 properties is not being picked up in spring mcvc application

Question

I am using log4j2 for logging via lombok plugin. However my application does not seem to be using log4j2 for logging and always falls back to commons-logging. I tried multiple options, but nothing seem to be working. Any help is greatly appreciated.

I excluded commons-logging in maven dependencies so the code picks up log4j2, but I get java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory.

Maven dependencies

<dependency>
      <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
      <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
      <version>4.3.3.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
      <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
      <version>3.1.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
      <artifactId>javax.servlet.jsp-api</artifactId>
      <version>2.3.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
      <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
      <version>1.2</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
      <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
      <version>1.18.8</version>
      <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
      <artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
      <version>2.11.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
      <artifactId>log4j-api</artifactId>
      <version>2.11.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
      <artifactId>jackson-core</artifactId>
      <version>2.4.1</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
      <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
      <version>2.4.1.1</version>
    </dependency>

Log4j XML properties file

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Configuration>
    <Appenders>
        <Console name="Console" target="SYSTEM_OUT">
            <PatternLayout pattern="%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n" />
        </Console>
        <File name="MyFile" fileName="springMvcTest.log" append="false">
            <PatternLayout pattern="%d{yyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%t] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n"/>
        </File>
    </Appenders>
    <Loggers>
        <Root level="info">
            <AppenderRef ref="Console" />
            <AppenderRef ref="MyFile"/>
        </Root>
    </Loggers>
</Configuration>

Controller code

@Log4j2
@Controller
public class HelloWorldController {
@RequestMapping(value = "/helloJson", method = RequestMethod.GET, produces = "application/json;charset=UTF-8")
    @ResponseBody
    public RequestData helloJson(HttpEntity<String> entity, HttpServletRequest inpreq, HttpServletResponse inpres, @RequestParam Map<String, String> params){
        //api
        System.out.println(org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger.class.getResource("/org/ap‌​ache/logging/log4j/Logger.class"));
        //core
        System.out.println(org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger.class.getResource("/org/ap‌​ache/logging/log4j/core/Appender.class"));
        //config
        System.out.println(org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger.class.getResource("/log4j2.xml"));
        log.info("Input => {} / {} % {}",inpreq.getMethod(),inpreq.getServletPath(), params);
        return params;
    }
}

Answer 1

I have cloned your project and saw the issue. Do not exclude commons-logging . Move you log4j.xml to src/main/resources and (optionally) in src/main/resources/log4j.xml change the log path to fileName="../logs/springMvcTest.log" . Here are the log statements from springMvcTest.log :

2019-07-28 21:14:57.516 [http-nio-84-exec-30] INFO  com.test.epi.controller.HelloWorldController - Input => GET / /helloJson % {}
2019-07-28 21:14:57.518 [http-nio-84-exec-30] INFO  com.test.epi.controller.HelloWorldController - Logger class: class org.apache.logging.log4j.core.Logger

Let the Spring framework use commons-logging . For your app-specific logging continue to use log4j .