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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T01:07:43+00:00

I’ve got a log4J setup in which the root logger is supposed to log

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I’ve got a log4J setup in which the root logger is supposed to log ERROR level messages and above to the console and another logger logs everything to syslog.

log4j.properties is:

# Root logger option
log4j.rootLogger=ERROR,R

log4j.appender.R=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender
log4j.appender.R.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.R.layout.ConversionPattern=%d %p %t %c - %m%n

log4j.logger.SGSearch=DEBUG,SGSearch
log4j.appender.SGSearch=org.apache.log4j.net.SyslogAppender
log4j.appender.SGSearch.SyslogHost=localhost
log4j.appender.SGSearch.Facility=LOCAL6
log4j.appender.SGSearch.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout
log4j.appender.SGSearch.layout.ConversionPattern=[%-5p] %m%n

In code I do

private static final Logger logger = Logger.getLogger("SGSearch");
.
.
.
logger.info("Commencing snapshot index [" + args[1] + " -> " + args[2] + "]");

What is happening is that I get the console logging for all logging levels. What seems to be happening is that the level for SGSearch overrides the level set for the root logger somehow. I can’t figure it out.

I have confirmed that Log4J is reading the properties file I think it is, and no other (via the -Dlog4j.debug option)

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    The way Log4j chaining works is a bit counter intuitive (to me at least). See the log4j manual. If the request level is equal to or above the threshold of the most specific matching logger, it is accepted. Once the request is accepted, it gets handled by the complete chain of ancestors regardless of their thresholds!

    To suppress the chaining behavior, add:

    log4j.additivity.SGSearch=false

    This will cause requests handled by logger SGSearch to no longer be passed up the chain.

    One other suggestion: don’t name your logger and appender the same, because at some point in the future you, or a colleague will mix them up. The logger name should indicate which type of logging is handled, the appender name should specify where the logging goes. So in this case I would think ‘SGSearch’ could be the logger name, and the appender should be called something like ‘LocalSysLog’.

    BTW: In my opinion you are doing the right thing by restricting the root logger with a high threshold, and lowering it for specific loggers. This avoids clutter from loud libraries (Apache has a few notorious ones).

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