How to set up Spring Boot and log4j2 properly?

Question

How can I make Spring log properly via log4j2 along with the other dependencies I have (Hibernate, Netty, Mina, etc.)?

I tried many different thins and dependency combinations. But I either can get Spring to log and nothing else, or everything but Spring.

With all dependecies logging properly (but Spring) I get the following error:

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.ConfigurationFactory.getConfiguration(Lorg/apache/logging/log4j/core/config/ConfigurationSource;)Lorg/apache/logging/log4j/core/config/Configuration;
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.log4j2.Log4J2LoggingSystem.loadConfiguration(Log4J2LoggingSystem.java:167)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.log4j2.Log4J2LoggingSystem.loadDefaults(Log4J2LoggingSystem.java:150)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.AbstractLoggingSystem.initializeWithConventions(AbstractLoggingSystem.java:75)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.AbstractLoggingSystem.initialize(AbstractLoggingSystem.java:50)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.log4j2.Log4J2LoggingSystem.initialize(Log4J2LoggingSystem.java:140)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingApplicationListener.initializeSystem(LoggingApplicationListener.java:277)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingApplicationListener.initialize(LoggingApplicationListener.java:255)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingApplicationListener.onApplicationEnvironmentPreparedEvent(LoggingApplicationListener.java:224)
        at org.springframework.boot.logging.LoggingApplicationListener.onApplicationEvent(LoggingApplicationListener.java:200)
        at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.invokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:166)
        at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:138)
        at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:121)
        at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.publishEvent(EventPublishingRunListener.java:111)
        at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.environmentPrepared(EventPublishingRunListener.java:65)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.environmentPrepared(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:54)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.createAndRefreshContext(SpringApplication.java:329)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:306)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1185)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1174)
        at com.myproject.MyProject.main(MyProject.java:XX)

This is my build.gradle dependencies

dependencies {
    // FIX engine
    compile 'org.quickfixj:quickfixj-all:1.6.2'
    compile 'org.apache.mina:mina-core:2.0.16'

    // Web API
    compile ('org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-web:1.4.1.RELEASE') {
        // Remove default Spring loggers (where logback takes precedence)
        exclude module: 'spring-boot-starter-logging'
    }

    // Logging
    compile 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-api:2.7'
    compile 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-core:2.7'
    compile 'commons-logging:commons-logging:1.2' // for Spring logging
    compile 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-web:2.7' // for Spring logging
    compile 'org.apache.logging.log4j:log4j-slf4j-impl:2.7' // for Hibernate logging

    // ORM and Database Driver
    compile 'org.hibernate:hibernate-core:5.2.4.Final'
    compile 'org.postgresql:postgresql:9.4.1209'

    // Key-value store
    compile 'biz.paluch.redis:lettuce:4.1.2.Final'

    // Testing
    // The Groovy language
    compile 'org.codehaus.groovy:groovy-all:2.4.6'
    // Spock testing framework
    testCompile 'org.spockframework:spock-core:1.0-groovy-2.4'
}

Then, getting rid of my logging dependencies and adding the dependecy below:

 compile 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-log4j2:1.4.1.RELEASE'

Spring logging will work, but the other deps logging will not.

This is the main method (nothing special)

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        // Fine tune a few logging settings so they don't log with TRACE or DEBUG levels.
        Configurator.setLevel("org.hibernate", Level.ERROR);
        Configurator.setLevel("org.jboss", Level.ERROR);
        Configurator.setLevel("org.apache.mina", Level.ERROR);
        Configurator.setLevel("io.netty", Level.ERROR);
        Configurator.setLevel("quickfix.mina", Level.WARN);
        Configurator.setLevel("com.lambdaworks", Level.WARN);

        // ...

        logger.info("FIX Controller started. Loading the API.");

        SpringApplication.run(MyProject.class, args);
    }

So again, how can I get Spring to log properly via log4j2 along with the other dependencies I have?

Answer 1

Spring Boot 1.4.1 is built with and supports Log4J 2.6 but you're trying to use 2.7. Unfortunately that doesn't work as there's a breaking API change in 2.7 that was made in this commit. This is the cause of the NoSuchMethodError that you're seeing.

Dropping back to Log4J2 2.6.2 should fix the problem. Alternatively, you could upgrade to Spring Boot 1.5 which uses Log4J 2.7.