log4net - configure using multiple configuration files

Question

I have an application consisting of a host and pluggable modules (plugins).

I want to be able to configure log4net for the host and for each of the other modules. Each of them should have its own configuration file and each will log to a different file.

Only the host has an App.config file. The plugins have their own config file containing the log4net config sections.

Calling XmlConfigurator.Configure from one of the plugins overrides the host's app.config log4net definitions.

Is there an easy way to append configurations instead of overriding them?

Thanks, Gai.

Answer 1

It appears you already have found a solution that works for you. However, I've found a different solution which I consider to be "more ideal", so I'll post it here for whoever might find this question in the future.

log4net has a concept called repositories which can be configured separately. It's not very popular nor very well documented, but here's some documentation I found:

http://logging.apache.org/log4net/release/manual/repositories.html

Anyway, all you need to do is add RepositoryAttribute on your plugin assembly or assemblies with a repository name unique to that plugin and log4net will keep it separate from everything else.