How to get JBoss log directory

Question

We need to display JBoss log files from within our web application. Is it possible to achieve this without using ServerConfigLocator ? The application must be able to run also with Websphere and we don't want dependencies on specific JARs.

Answer 1

JBoss's defined log directory is held in the jboss.server.log.dir system property. You can resolve that directory to a java.io.File, and read the files inside.

File logDir = new File(System.getProperty("jboss.server.log.dir"));
logDir.list(); // etc etc

You can also get this through ServerConfig.getServerLogDir() (on JBoss 4.x, anyway), but you said you wanted to avoid JAR dependencies.

Answer 2

You could use a custom log implementation. This would give you complete control over the logging behavior.

JBoss uses Log4j as its logging mechanism. WebSphere uses Jakarta Commons Logging, which can be configured to delegate to Log4j if it isn't already the default. If you already use Log4j in your application then I don't expect that this difference will cause you any new problems.