Logging

Last modified 05 Jun 2024 12:11 +02:00

Logging is one of the best and most important troubleshooting tools. Logging provides information about all the important things that happen in the system. It also goes very deep, and it can provide very fine details about midPoint operations. Logging is universal and very powerful tool. It is the best hope to find the cause even for the trickiest of problems.

Similarly to every other tool, the most important thing is to know how to use it properly. This is especially important for midPoint logging. The default logging setting logs only a very little information. This is a reasonable detail for a production system that has been properly configured and tested. It is not enough in case that you are chasing a configuration. In that case, the logging system needs to be reconfigured to log more information. Beware, if logging system is set to its full power you will get a huge stream of data that is likely to completely overwhelm you. The important information will surely be there. However, they will be lost in the flood of other data. Therefore, logging need some skill and experience to manage it correctly.

Logging in MidPoint

MidPoint is using logging approach that is well established in the industry. MidPoint logging principles should be quite familiar to any deployment engineer.

MidPoint is logging diagnostic messages systematically. The messages are set on several log levels. Log levels FATAL to INFO are intended to be enabled during normal system operation. Log level DEBUG is intended for configuration troubleshooting by system administrator. The TRACE level is intended mostly for development-level troubleshooting.

See logging configuration page to explore all configuration options for logging.

Log Files

MidPoint log files are located in midPoint home directory. MidPoint home directory contains sub-directory logs and midPoint logfiles are there. There are usually several files:

  • midpoint.log is the primary midPoint log file. Almost all log messages from midPoint will be recorded here. This is the right file to examine. The truth is in there.

  • midpoint.out is file where the standard output of midPoint process is recorded. Only a very few things are usually logged here. Those are the things that happen before midPoint logging system is enabled, therefore midPoint cannot control and redirect logging of those messages. Which that the messages usually describe events that happen before midPoint starts and after it stops. This file does not need to be inspected routinely. However, it is a useful place to look while experiencing startup issues.

Log files are usually rotated. Which means that when there is too much data in one log file the file is renamed. Oldest files are removed. Otherwise, the log files would fill all available disk space.

Logging in ICF Connectors

Most of the logging of ICF connectors is integrated with midPoint logging. Therefore, setting a correct logger in midPoint will result in changed logging setup of the connector. The appropriate class name is usually state in the connector documentation.

However, there is one issue. If the connector or any of its libraries use obsolete java.util.logging (also known as JUL) then the midPoint logging setting will not work. The JUL is not designed to work well with classloaders and dynamic logging configuration. ICF is using classloaders and midPoint is usign dynamic logging configuration therefore the JUL fails miserably in this case. Yet there is a workaround. The logging can still be configured by using the ancient logging.properties cofiguration file:

  1. Create logging.properties configuration file in application of web container class path. E.g. if you are using Tomcat then a good place is <tomcat-root>/lib/logging.properties}. The file may look like this:.logging.properties

org.dinosaur.lost.in.past.level = FINER
expect4j.Expect4j.level = ALL
  1. Restart midPoint

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