Logback VS Monolog

Java -> Logback, Log4j2, JDK (Java Util Logging), Slf4j, e.t.c.

This is a GitHub link to my demo app. It’s simple Spring Boot web app used to debugging various stuff. There are many ways to configure JSON logging in Spring Boot. I decided to use Logback because it is easy to configure and one of the most widely used logging library in the Java Community. To enable JSON logging we need to add below dependencies.

Logback(https://logback.qos.ch/) is another non-commercial Java logging framework. It labels itself as a successor to the previously discussed Log4j framework.

> Then apache decides to put new people on log4j, do a backward incompatible v2 design that nevertheless is worse than slf4j. Why?

slf4j itself isn't a logging framework. It's a facade to logging frameworks.

Simple Logging Facade for Java ( https://www.slf4j.org )

It needs a logging framework behind it - log4j, log4j2, logback, commons, JUL.

The question is "why do log4j2?"

Logback went from the log4j1.x path ( https://logback.qos.ch )

Log4j2 has a lot of features that weren't present when the project started ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log4j#Apache_Log4j_2 ).

There is a licensing difference between Logback (LGPL) and Log4jx (Apache Commons).

Also, I'd like you to pay attention to the log consumer. You see, when the E2E scenario fails, it's not always obvious why. Sometimes to understand the source of the problem you have to dig into containers' logs. Thankfully the log consumer allows us to forward a container's logs to any SLF4J logger instance. In this project, containers' logs are forwarded to regular text files (you can find the Logback configuration in the repository). Though it's much better to transfer logs to external logging facility (e.g. Kibana).

This shows that the MariaDB JDBC driver uses Logback as a logging framework. Although Logback is not affected by Log4Shell, it has a related vulnerability (of much lesser severity, no need to panic) fixed in version 1.2.8 and 1.3.0-alpha11. I checked the version used by the connector and found that it used 1.3.0-alpha10. Even though Logback is included as a test dependency in the MariaDB driver, I sent a pull request on GitHub to update it. I encourage you to do the same in any open-source project you find and that includes a vulnerable dependency.

Dependencing on the project, changing the logger might range from easy peasy to a multi-week task. I'm ready to bet that in many (most?) cases, it'd actually be quite easy, so let's explore how to do it, using Logback as the target (there aren't that many alternatives actually).

behold logback doing a bunch of JNDI fixes: https://github.com/qos-ch/logback/commit/c43bd30e1092b89bb91f5fb6a28310956b3bac61

To add onto this, what's more commonly done these days is to use a library like Monolog which can be configured with multiple log handlers. One of the handlers which are typically enabled is one which writes to error_log. You can add more which write directly to a logging service like Sentry or whatever, or even in dev write an HTTP header paired with a browser extension which puts your backend log messages in your browser console (see the handler + install the extension for chrome or firefox)

Monolog is a highly regarded PHP logging library with open source code. This project extends a straightforward and adaptable API, allowing developers to log messages from their PHP applications to diverse channels, including files, databases, and various third-party services. The modularity of this project’s source code provides an assortment of handlers and processors that seamlessly combine and configure to cater to specific logging requirements for any application.

If you need something more flexible you could always use Monolog which provides a bunch of adapters to log to any service want. You could for example use the syslog adapter to send your logs to syslog, and then configure rsyslog to print them directly into your terminal (or just `tail -f` a log file).

PHP -> Built in Logger, Monolog, Analog, KLogger, Log4PHP

So far, I've been discussing what PHP itself has to offer, which, quite frankly, is not very appealing. Luckily, though, there are great developers involved in pushing beyond those boundaries, making the appearance of great tools a reality. That is the case for Monolog.

Laravel (and many other frameworks) use the Monolog Package for logging by default. Using their formatter does everything you need!

Nowadays all popular frameworks comes with logging system built in. If not, you should use http://seldaek.github.io/monolog/.

Laravel logging is created on top of Monolog, which is a powerful logging library for PHP projects. In this guide, we will be looking at how to send our laravel logs to telegram channel with the help of the Telegram Bot API.