HOW TO Configure log4net in a Web Service
log4net can be used to add logging to your web service. All you have to do is to initialise the logging environment in your Global.asax and configure log4net using the Web.config file.
In your Web Service you should define a Global.asax file. The initialisation code can go directly into the Global.asax or it can go into a code behind file Global.asax.cs.
To define the logging all in the Global.asax file you should ensure that it contains something like:
<%@ Application Language="C#" %>
<script runat="server">
private void Application_Start(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
log4net.Config.DOMConfigurator.Configure();
}
</script>
Alternatively if you are using a code behind file then your Global.asax should contain:
<%@ Application Codebehind="Global.asax.cs" Inherits="MyApp.Global" %>
and your Global.asax.cs should have some code like this:
namespace MyApp
{
public class Global : System.Web.HttpApplication
{
/// <summary>
/// Called when the web application starts
/// </summary>
/// <param name="sender">who</param>
/// <param name="e">what</param>
protected void Application_Start(Object sender, EventArgs e)
{
// Initialise the logging when the application loads
log4net.Config.DOMConfigurator.Configure();
}
}
}
The Application_Start method will be called automatically then the Web Service is loaded (or reloaded). As you can see we use this opportunity to initialise the log4net environment.
Each Web Application must live in its own directory and this directory should have a Web.config file that is used to configure the Web Application. This is also the configuration file used by log4net.
An example Web.config including log4net configuration might be:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
<configSections>
<section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,log4net" />
</configSections>
<!-- Web Service standard configuration -->
<system.web>
<!-- ... -->
</system.web>
<!-- Logging Configuration -->
<log4net>
<appender name="RollingLogFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender,log4net">
<param name="File" value="c:\\my-app-log.txt" />
<param name="AppendToFile" value="true" />
<param name="MaxSizeRollBackups" value="10" />
<param name="MaximumFileSize" value="5MB" />
<param name="RollingStyle" value="Size" />
<param name="StaticLogFileName" value="true" />
<layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout,log4net">
<param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d [%t] %-5p %c [%x] - %m%n" />
</layout>
</appender>
<!-- Setup the root category, add the appenders and set the default priority -->
<root>
<priority value="WARN" />
<appender-ref ref="RollingLogFileAppender" />
</root>
</log4net>
</configuration>