Have you even been frustrated tracking Java server logs? This can be pretty challenging (and annoying) task especially if the same server is used by other developers or even maybe users. In this case log file could be flooded with a lot (for you) irrelevant messages. Yes, I know… there are console tools like grep that can help you in message filtering, but let’s admit it… majority of today’s developers is not comfortable with the command line.
LogDigger makes tracking of logs in Java web applications a bit easier. It’s a Firefox add-on (made as Firebug extension) that retrieves log messages logged using Log4j logging API. (Other logging APIs may be supported in the future.)
How it works…
LogDigger add-on for Firefox is coupled with the LogDigger servlet filter. LogDigger on the server installs it self as Log4j log appender. It collects log messages (in accordance with Log4j configuration) and returns them back to the add-on. Log events appear in a console tab in Firebug. This allows developers to monitor behavior of their applications directly in Firefox!
When LogDigger add-on receives events, it adds a label to the Firefox status bar showing number of messages per level (fatal, error, warning, info or debug). Log events are collected on the server only when requested by browser (if user has LogDigger add-on installed and enabled) and cached for a short period of time so that overhead on the server is minimal.
Security considerations
LogDigger 0.2 is the first public release of the tool and although it can be safely used in development environment, you definitely should not use it in production because currently there’s no any security measure that would prevent someone from stealing your logs (that could contain very sensitive information). Security issue will be addressed in the following few weeks.
All you need to do to disable LogDigger in your web application is to remove servlet filter definition from WEB-IN/web.xml.
Credits
Development of Firefox (and Firebug) extension was an exciting experience for me. I owe credits to Jan Odvarko for a series of excellent articles about Extending Firebug. Needless to say, I’ve learned a lot analyzing code of Firebug and extensions like FireCookie.
Comments on this entry are closed.