[log4j] How to log Apache CXF Soap Request and Soap Response using Log4j?

I am using the Apache CXF Framework. Inside my client program, I need to log CXF SOAP Requests and SOAP Responses. When I used

JaxWsProxyFactoryBean factory = new JaxWsProxyFactoryBean();
factory.setAddress(host);
factory.setServiceClass(MyService.class);
factory.getInInterceptors().add(new LoggingInInterceptor());
factory.getOutInterceptors().add(new LoggingOutInterceptor());

I got these SOAP Request and SOAP Responses in the console:

Nov 9, 2011 6:48:01 PM org.apache.cxf.interceptor.LoggingOutInterceptor$LoggingCallback onClose
INFO: Outbound Message
---------------------------
ID: 2
Encoding: UTF-8
Content-Type: text/xml
Headers: {}
Payload: <soap:Envelope xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/envelope/"><soap:Body><ns4:MYResponse
--------------------------------------

But my actual requirement is, instead of printing them to the server console, I need to have them inside the log file.

When I used log4j directly as shown

log4j(factory.getInInterceptors().add(new LoggingInInterceptor()));
log4j(factory.getOutInterceptors().add(new LoggingOutInterceptor()));

It is only printing true and true inside the log file.

Could anybody please let me know how to configure this?

This question is related to log4j cxf

The answer is


This worked for me.

Setup log4j as normal. Then use this code:

    // LOGGING 
    LoggingOutInterceptor loi = new LoggingOutInterceptor(); 
    loi.setPrettyLogging(true); 
    LoggingInInterceptor lii = new LoggingInInterceptor(); 
    lii.setPrettyLogging(true); 

    org.apache.cxf.endpoint.Client client = org.apache.cxf.frontend.ClientProxy.getClient(isalesService); 
    org.apache.cxf.endpoint.Endpoint cxfEndpoint = client.getEndpoint(); 

    cxfEndpoint.getOutInterceptors().add(loi); 
    cxfEndpoint.getInInterceptors().add(lii);

Try this code:

EndpointImpl impl = (EndpointImpl)Endpoint.publish(address, implementor);
    impl.getServer().getEndpoint().getInInterceptors().add(new LoggingInInterceptor());
    impl.getServer().getEndpoint().getOutInterceptors().add(new LoggingOutInterceptor());

Inside the logback.xml you need to put the interface name for webservice:

<appender name="FILE" class="ch.qos.logback.classic.sift.SiftingAppender">
    <discriminator
        class="com.progressoft.ecc.integration.logging.ThreadNameDiscriminator">
        <key>threadName</key>
        <defaultValue>unknown</defaultValue>
    </discriminator>
    <filter class="ch.qos.logback.core.filter.EvaluatorFilter">
        <evaluator>
            <expression>logger.contains("InterfaceWebServiceSoap")</expression>
        </evaluator>
        <OnMismatch>DENY</OnMismatch>
        <OnMatch>NEUTRAL</OnMatch>
    </filter>
    <filter class="ch.qos.logback.classic.filter.ThresholdFilter">
        <level>TRACE</level>
    </filter>
    <sift>
        <appender name="FILE-${threadName}"
            class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
            <File>${LOGGING_PATH}/${threadName}.log</File>
            <rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
                <FileNamePattern>${ARCHIVING_PATH}/%d{yyyy-MM-dd}.${threadName}%i.log.zip
                </FileNamePattern>
                <MaxHistory>30</MaxHistory>
                <TimeBasedFileNamingAndTriggeringPolicy
                    class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.SizeAndTimeBasedFNATP">
                    <MaxFileSize>50MB</MaxFileSize>
                </TimeBasedFileNamingAndTriggeringPolicy>
            </rollingPolicy>
            <encoder class="ch.qos.logback.classic.encoder.PatternLayoutEncoder">
                <Pattern>%date{dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSS} | %5level | %-60([%logger{53}:%line]): %msg %ex{full} %n</Pattern>
            </encoder>
        </appender>
    </sift>
</appender>

<root>
    <level value="ALL" />
    <appender-ref ref="FILE" />
</root>

cxf.xml

<cxf:bus>
    <cxf:ininterceptors>
        <ref bean="loggingInInterceptor" />
    </cxf:ininterceptors>
    <cxf:outinterceptors>
        <ref bean="logOutInterceptor" />
    </cxf:outinterceptors>
</cxf:bus>

org.apache.cxf.Logger

org.apache.cxf.common.logging.Log4jLogger

Please check screenshot here


Another easy way is to set the logger like this- ensure that you do it before you load the cxf web service related classes. You can use it in some static blocks.

YourClientConstructor() {

  LogUtils.setLoggerClass(org.apache.cxf.common.logging.Log4jLogger.class);

  URL wsdlURL = YOurURL;//

  //create the service
  YourService = new YourService(wsdlURL, SERVICE_NAME);
  port = yourService.getServicePort(); 

  Client client = ClientProxy.getClient(port);
  client.getInInterceptors().add(new LoggingInInterceptor());
  client.getOutInterceptors().add(new LoggingOutInterceptor());
}

Then the inbound and outbound messages will be printed to Log4j file instead of the console. Make sure your log4j is configured properly


When configuring log4j.properties, putting org.apache.cxf logging level to INFO is enough to see the plain SOAP messages:

log4j.logger.org.apache.cxf=INFO

DEBUG is too verbose.


Procedure for global setting of client/server logging of SOAP/REST requests/ responses with log4j logger. This way you set up logging for the whole application without having to change the code, war, jar files, etc.

  1. install file cxf-rt-features-logging-X.Y.Z.jar to your CLASS_PATH

  2. create file (path for example: /opt/cxf/cxf-logging.xml):

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:cxf="http://cxf.apache.org/core" xsi:schemaLocation="http://cxf.apache.org/core http://cxf.apache.org/schemas/core.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.0.xsd">
    <cxf:bus>
     <cxf:features>
     <bean class="org.apache.cxf.ext.logging.LoggingFeature">
     <property name="prettyLogging" value="true"/>
     </bean>
     </cxf:features>
     </cxf:bus>
     </beans>
    
  3. set logging for org.apache.cxf (log4j 1.x) log4j.logger.org.apache.cxf=INFO,YOUR_APPENDER

  4. set these properties on java start-up

java ... -Dcxf.config.file.url=file:///opt/cxf/cxf-logging.xml -Dorg.apache.cxf.Logger=org.apache.cxf.common.logging.Log4jLogger -Dcom.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.client.HttpTransportPipe.dump=true -Dcom.sun.xml.internal.ws.transport.http.client.HttpTransportPipe.dump=true -Dcom.sun.xml.ws.transport.http.HttpAdapter.dump=true -Dcom.sun.xml.internal.ws.transport.http.HttpAdapter.dump=true ...

I don't know why, but it is necessary to set variables as well com.sun.xml.*


Simplest way to achieve pretty logging in Preethi Jain szenario:

LoggingInInterceptor loggingInInterceptor = new LoggingInInterceptor();
loggingInInterceptor.setPrettyLogging(true);
LoggingOutInterceptor loggingOutInterceptor = new LoggingOutInterceptor();
loggingOutInterceptor.setPrettyLogging(true);
factory.getInInterceptors().add(loggingInInterceptor);
factory.getOutInterceptors().add(loggingOutInterceptor);

In your spring context configuring below would log the request and response soap messsage.

<bean id="loggingFeature" class="org.apache.cxf.feature.LoggingFeature">
    <property name="prettyLogging" value="true" />
</bean>

<cxf:bus>
    <cxf:features>
        <ref bean="loggingFeature" />
    </cxf:features>
</cxf:bus>

In case somebody wants to do this, using Play Framework (and using LogBack http://logback.qos.ch/), then you can configure the application-logger.xml with this line:

 <logger name="org.apache.cxf" level="DEBUG"/>

For me, it did the trick ;)