Disable automatic logging configuration in spring boot

Question

I use spring boot 1.2.1.RELEASE and noticed that spring automatically changes my log4j configuration on startup.

Here are my (spring) dependencies:

<!-- parent includes slf4j and log4j -->
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <!-- Import dependency management from Spring Boot -->
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.2.RELEASE</version>
        <type>pom</type>
        <scope>import</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.2.RELEASE</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jetty</artifactId>
        <version>1.1.2.RELEASE</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>de.komoot.wanderwalter</groupId>
        <artifactId>wanderwalter-api-models</artifactId>
        <version>1.26-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>de.komoot.wanderwalter</groupId>
        <artifactId>wanderwalter-routing</artifactId>
        <version>1.26-SNAPSHOT</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.graphhopper</groupId>
        <artifactId>graphhopper</artifactId>
        <version>0.3-kmt</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

<dependencyManagement>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
            <version>1.1.3</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>commons-codec</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-codec</artifactId>
            <version>1.8</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

When I start my application with -Dlog4j.configuration=log4j-live.xml -Dlog4j.debug I can see that first my log4j config is used, then spring cleans it and installs its own config and then (this is what I guess) adds the default log4j.xml from the classpath.

How can I use only the default log4j behavior or how can I define which of my files spring shall use for configuration?

Cheers,

Jan

Answer 1

I had similar issue in following setup:

• spring boot 2.7.3
• spring 5.3.22
• log4j 2.18

log4j-1 Configuration (and API usage) bridged to log4j2 by log4j-1.2-api artifact (and defining "-Dlog4j1.compatibility=true" on command line)

Defining logging.config (ponting to V1 log4j.xml) as celkins suggests did not help, since the reconfiguration by spring even failed because the implementation was not aware for log4j V1 configuration syntax (sax parse error).

My solution was:

Setting the command line property

-Dorg.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingSystem=none

This lets spring instantiate a NoOp LoggingSystem which does nothing.

Answer 2

Spring Boot uses a logging system-agnostic property to override the default configuration:

If the environment contains a property logging.config then that will be used to initialize the logging system, otherwise a default location is used.

So use -Dlogging.config=log4j-live.xml -Dlog4j.debug instead.