Debug Logging

Follow these steps to view and set logging levels in Logback.jsp.

1. In the AM console, go to Logback.jsp in the root context of the AM installation, for example https://openam.example.com:8443/openam/Logback.jsp.

   No links to this page are provided in the AM console.

   Important

   Only the amAdmin administrator account can access the Logback.jsp page and alter the debug settings; delegated administrators do not have access.

   The page displays all the appenders and their associated debug loggers:

   

2. To set the logging level for all loggers that output to a particular appender:

   1. Select the name of the appender from the Appender drop-down list.

   2. Select the debug level from the Level drop-down list.

   3. Click Apply.

3. To set the logging level for a class or package:

   1. Select the name of the individual logger from the Logger drop-down list, or select the global ROOT logger to set the level for all loggers.

      The current debug level is shown in the Level field.

      Note

      Any scripts that create debug messages have their own logger, which is only created after the script has executed at least once.

      The name of the logger has the format: scripts.script_type.script_UUID.

      For example, scripts.POLICY_CONDITION.9de3eb62-f131-4fac-a294-7bd170fd4acb.

   2. Select a new debug level from the Level drop-down list.

   3. Click Apply.

   When you apply any changes to the logger settings, a Logger settings updated message is shown at the top of the Logback.jsp page.

   Important

   Changes made in Logback.jsp apply immediately, but are not permanently stored. Restarting AM or the container in which it runs will reset the levels to defaults.

   You can configure the default settings that will be applied when AM starts up. See "Altering the Startup Debug Settings".

4. As soon as you have reproduced the problem you are investigating, return to the Logback.jsp page and revert the logger levels to the previous settings, to avoid filling up disk space.

Perform the following steps to configure a basic, persistent debug logging setup in AM using a logback.xml file:

1. Create a logback.xml file in the AM classpath, for example in /path/to/tomcat/webapps/openam/WEB-INF/classes/.

2. In the logback.xml file, add an empty, top-level element named configuration.

   For example:

   <configuration>
   </configuration>

   This element contains the configuration of the loggers and appenders, covered in later steps.

   1. (Optional) To instruct AM to periodically check the logback.xml file for changes, and apply them to the running instance, add both a scan and a scanPeriod attribute to the <configuration> element. For example:

      <configuration scan="true" scanPeriod="30 seconds">
      </configuration>

      Tip

      If AM is not configured to scan the logback.xml file for changes, you will need to reboot the instance in order to pick up any changes.

      You can set the scanPeriod attribute to a longer time period, for example one hour, so that rebooting a running system is not required when you need to alter the debugging level.

      For more information, see Automatically reloading configuration file upon modification in the Logback Documentation.

   2. (Optional) To troubleshoot issues when configuring debug logging using the logback.xml file, add a debug attribute, set to true, to the <configuration> element. For example:

      <configuration debug="true">
      </configuration>

      AM will record debug logging status information to the default log file for the container in which it is running. For example, in Tomcat, status messages about the configuration of logback will be recorded in the Catalina.out file.

      For more information, see Status data in the Logback Documentation.

3. Inside the <configuration> element, add the definition of one or more appenders. The following example appender logs messages to a file named debug.out in the default AM debug directory:

   <configuration>
     <appender name="DEBUG.OUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
       <file>openam/var/debug/debug.out</file>
       <encoder>
         <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
       </encoder>
     </appender>
   </configuration>

   The pattern in the above example creates debug log entries that are identical to the output produced by previous versions of AM, including the transaction ID to aid with tracking events as they occur throughout the system.

4. Inside the <configuration> element, add the definition of one or more loggers.

   Loggers specify which classes to capture debug messages from, including any sub-classes. They also specify the level of debug information to capture, and which of the specified appenders is used to store the output.

   The following example logger applies the Debug level to the scripts.POLICY_CONDITION class and its sub-classes. The output is recorded in the file specified in the debug.out appender, created in a previous step:

   <configuration>
     <appender name="DEBUG.OUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
       <file>openam/var/debug/debug.out</file>
       <encoder>
         <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
       </encoder>
     </appender>
     <logger name="scripts.POLICY_CONDITION" level="Debug" >
       <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
     </logger>
   </configuration>

5. (Optional) Inside the <configuration> element, add a root catch-all logger, to specify the global level of debug logging to all classes that do not match any of the loggers created in the previous step:

   <configuration>
     <appender name="DEBUG.OUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
       <file>openam/var/debug/debug.out</file>
       <encoder>
         <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
       </encoder>
     </appender>
     <logger name="scripts.POLICY_CONDITION" level="Debug" >
       <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
     </logger>
     <root level="Error">
       <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
     </root>
   </configuration>

6. Save your changes.

   The changes will be applied the next time you reboot AM or the container in which it runs.

   Note

   If you are editing an existing logback.xml that AM has already loaded, and contains the scan="true" attribute, you do not need to reboot. Instead wait for the amount of time specified in the scanPeriod attribute and the new configuration will be loaded into AM.

7. (Optional) To verify that the configuration from the logback.xml file has loaded, navigate to the Logback.jsp file, for example at https://openam.example.com:8443/openam/Logback.jsp, which reflects the configuration found:

   

   Note that any changes made in the Logback.jsp are temporary, and are not persisted to the logback.xml file.

Configure logback.xml to send logging to standard output. For example, for Apache Tomcat deployments, console output is typically redirected to the Tomcat logging file, catalina.out.

This example configuration captures all debug-level logging using the default <root> element, and redirects it to the STDOUT appender:

<configuration>
  <appender name="STDOUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
    <encoder>
      <pattern>%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%thread] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n</pattern>
    </encoder>
  </appender>
  <root level="Debug">
    <appender-ref ref="STDOUT" />
  </root>
</configuration>

1. To configure this example, create the following elements:

   • An <appender> that uses the ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender class.

   • A <logger>, or a <root> element as shown here, referencing the STDOUT appender.

2. Save your changes as described in "To Configure Basic Debug Logging".

3. Check that debug logging is now output to stdout. For example:

   tail -f $TOMCAT_HOME/logs/catalina.out

You can direct debug logging to more than one output location by defining multiple appenders and loggers. Note that you can define only one root element.

This example defines loggers for the scripts.POLICY_CONDITION and scripts.OAUTH2_VALIDATE_SCOPE classes and subclasses that output debug logging to file, using the DEBUG.OUT appender.

All debug-level logging is also directed to standard output using the STDOUT appender.

<configuration>
  <appender name="DEBUG.OUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
    <file>openam/var/debug/debug.out</file>
    <encoder>
      <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
    </encoder>
  </appender>
  <appender name="STDOUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
    <encoder>
      <pattern>%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%thread] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n</pattern>
    </encoder>
  </appender>
  <logger name="scripts.OAUTH2_VALIDATE_SCOPE" level="Debug" >
      <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
    </logger>
  <logger name="scripts.POLICY_CONDITION" level="Debug" >
    <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
  </logger>
  <root level="Debug">
    <appender-ref ref="STDOUT" />
  </root>
</configuration>

1. To configure this example, create the following elements:

   • An <appender> that uses the ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender class.

   • An <appender> that uses the ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender class.

   • A <logger> for each of the script types, referencing the DEBUG.OUT appender.

   • A <logger>, or a <root> element as shown here, referencing the STDOUT appender.

2. Save your changes as described in "To Configure Basic Debug Logging".

The org.forgerock.openam.logback.JsonLayout class extends Logback JSON layout functionality by adding the transaction ID to the JSON output.

This example shows how you can include the JsonLayout class to format your log files:

<configuration>
  <appender name="DEBUG.OUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.FileAppender">
    <file>openam/var/debug/debug.out</file>
    <encoder>
      <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
    </encoder>
  </appender>
  <appender name="STDOUT" class="ch.qos.logback.core.ConsoleAppender">
    <encoder>
      <pattern>%d{HH:mm:ss.SSS} [%thread] %-5level %logger{36} - %msg%n</pattern>
    </encoder>
  </appender>
  <logger name="scripts.OAUTH2_VALIDATE_SCOPE" level="Debug" >
      <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
    </logger>
  <logger name="scripts.POLICY_CONDITION" level="Debug" >
    <appender-ref ref="DEBUG.OUT" />
  </logger>
  <root level="Debug">
    <appender-ref ref="STDOUT" />
  </root>
</configuration>

1. To configure this example, create the following elements:

   • An <appender> that uses the ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender class.

   • An <encoder> that uses the ch.qos.logback.core.encoder.LayoutWrappingEncoder class.

   • A <layout> element that uses the org.forgerock.openam.logback.JsonLayout class.

   • A <jsonFormatter> element that uses the ch.qos.logback.contrib.jackson.JacksonJsonFormatter class.

2. Save and verify your changes as described in "To Configure Basic Debug Logging".

   The use of the JsonLayout class results in the addition of a transactionId at the top level of the log entry. For example:

   {
   "timestamp" : "2022-07-28 15:39:44.562",
   "level" : "DEBUG",
   "thread" : "http-nio-8080-exec-6",
   "mdc" : {
     "transactionId" : "eb0664cc-4615-461e-973a-64a1fc4f659a-34695"
   },
   "logger" : "org.forgerock.openam.rest.restAuthenticationFilter",
   "message" : "OpenAM SSO Token Session Module has successfully authenticated the client",
   "context" : "default",
   "transactionId" : "eb0664cc-4615-461e-973a-64a1fc4f659a-34695"
   }
             

Logback provides built-in support for a number of log file rotation schemes, for example both time and size based rotation. If you have configured AM with a logback.xml file, you can configure log file rotation in the appenders, by performing the following steps:

1. Edit the logback.xml file you created in the AM classpath, for example in /path/to/tomcat/webapps/openam/WEB-INF/classes/.

   If you need to create the file, see "To Configure Basic Debug Logging".

2. In the <configuration> element, create an appender that uses the ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender class, for example:

   <appender name="DAILYLOG" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
     <encoder>
       <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
     </encoder>
   </appender>

   Within the appender, specify whether to rotate based on time, and optionally also size, as follows:

   1. (Optional) To rotate the log files based only on time, add a <rollingPolicy> element to the appender, which uses the ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy class.

      Include a <fileNamePattern> element that defines when the log files should roll over, and the naming convention.

      For example, the following appender rolls the log file over at midnight each day, and includes the date in the filename:

      <appender name="DAILYLOG" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
        <rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.TimeBasedRollingPolicy">
          <fileNamePattern>openam/var/debug/dailyLog.%d{yyyy-MM-dd}.log</fileNamePattern>
        </rollingPolicy>
        <encoder>
          <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
        </encoder>
      </appender>

   2. (Optional) To rotate the log files based on both time and size, add a <rollingPolicy> element to the appender, which uses the ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.SizeAndTimeBasedRollingPolicy class.

      Include a <fileNamePattern> element that defines when the log files should roll over, and where the counter for rolling over based on size occurs, specified by including %i. You must also include a <maxFileSize> element to define the maximum size of the log files.

      For example, the following appender rolls the log file over at midnight each day, but earlier if the file reaches 2 gigabytes in size, and includes the date in the filename:

      <appender name="DAILYLOG2GB" class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.RollingFileAppender">
        <rollingPolicy class="ch.qos.logback.core.rolling.SizeAndTimeBasedRollingPolicy">
          <fileNamePattern>openam/var/debug/dailyLog2GB.%d{yyyy-MM-dd}-%i.log</fileNamePattern>
          <maxFileSize>2GB</maxFileSize>
        </rollingPolicy>
        <encoder>
          <pattern>%lo{5}: %d{ISO8601}: Thread[%t]: TransactionId[%X{transactionId}]%n%level: %m%n%ex</pattern>
        </encoder>
      </appender>

3. Save your changes.

   The changes will be applied the next time you reboot AM or the container in which it runs.

   Note

   If you are editing an existing logback.xml that AM has already loaded, and contains the scan="true" attribute, you do not need to reboot. Instead wait for the amount of time specified in the scanPeriod attribute and the new configuration will be loaded into AM.

   Debug log files will roll over each night, and also if they reach the 2GB size limit. The file names will contain the date, and a counter to signify the order in which they were written.

Perform the following steps to set the default debug level used by all loggers when AM starts up:

1. In the AM console, go to Deployment > Servers > Server Name > General > Debugging.

2. Select an option from the Debug Level field.

   The default level for debug logging is Error. This level is appropriate for normal production operations, in which case no debug log messages are expected.

   Setting the debug log level to Warning increases the volume of messages. Setting the debug log level to Message dumps detailed trace messages.

   Unless told to do so by qualified support personnel, do not use Warning or Message levels as a default in production. Instead, set the levels on a per-class basis. See Debug Logging.

3. Save your changes.

   Changes are applied immediately.

Perform the following steps to set the default directory used to store debug log files:

1. In the AM console, go to Deployment > Servers > Server Name > General > Debugging.

2. Enter a directory in which to store log files in the Debug Directory field.

   The default level for debug logging is Error. This level is appropriate for normal production operations, in which case no debug log messages are expected.

   The default value is %BASE_DIR%/%SERVER_URI%/debug. The %BASE_DIR% value equates to the folder containing the AM local configuration, for example /path/to/openam. The %SERVER_URI% value equates to the deployment URI used when deploying AM, for example /openam.

   Therefore, the default location for the debug logs resembles the following: /path/to/openam/var/debug/.

   Important

   Ensure that the specified folder can be written to by the account that is running AM or the container in which it runs.

3. Save your changes.

   The changes will be applied the next time you reboot AM or the container in which it runs.

Perform the following steps to log all debug messages to a single debug.out file:

1. In the AM console, go to Deployment > Servers > Server Name > General > Debugging.

2. Set the Merge Debug Files property to On.

3. Save your changes.

   Changes are applied immediately.

   All debug log messages will be written to a single debug file named debug.out. The file will be located in the directory specified in the Debug Directory property. See "To Set the Default Debug Directory".