ClasscastException - org.apache.log4j.Logger cannot be cast to org.owasp.esapi.Logger - log4j to log4j2

Question

I am working on upgrading log4j to log4j2. In that process I am getting a Logger Class cast exception. Below is the error.

Caused by: java.lang.ClassCastException: org.apache.log4j.Logger cannot be cast to org.owasp.esapi.Logger
    at org.owasp.esapi.reference.Log4JLogFactory.getLogger(Log4JLogFactory.java:88)
    at org.owasp.esapi.ESAPI.getLogger(ESAPI.java:154)
    at org.owasp.esapi.reference.DefaultEncoder.<init>(DefaultEncoder.java:75)
    at org.owasp.esapi.reference.DefaultValidator.<clinit>(DefaultValidator.java:91)
    ... 45 more

In my old code( log4j properties file) I see a reference to this Logger. Below is the code that we have in our old code.

log4j.loggerFactory=org.owasp.esapi.reference.Log4JLoggerFactory

Now in log4j2 I am using log4j2.xml file and I didn't find any tag equivalent to that line. Could any please suggest me how to proceed?
Note: I am running my application in JBoss EAP 7

Answer 1

You can switch the logger factory away from the Log4j1 factory in the ESAPI.properties file to something else in order to avoid this error. I haven't tried but I imagine you could create a custom logging factory that uses Log4j2.

The following example will configure ESAPI to use JUL logging, which avoids the ClassCastException:

ESAPI.Logger=org.owasp.esapi.reference.JavaLogFactory