7.3.8. Logging settings

The WFS service logs messages and errors that occur during operations to a dedicated log file. Entries in the log file are associated with a timestamp, the severity of the event and the IP address of the client (if available). Per default, the log is stored in the file WEB-INF/wfs.log within the application folder of the WFS web application.

The <logging> element in the config.xml file is used to adapt these default settings. The attribute logLevel on the <file> child element lets you change the severity level for log messages to debug, info, warn, or error (default: info). Additionally, you can provide an alternative absolute path and filename where to store the log messages.

Note

A web application typically has limited access to the file system for security reasons. Thus, make sure that the log file is accessible for the WFS web application. Check the documentation of your servlet container for details.

If you want log messages to be additionally printed to the console, then simply include the <console> child element as well. The <console> element also provides a logLevel attribute to define the severity level.

<logging>
  <console logLevel="info"/>
  <file logLevel="info">
    <fileName>path/to/your/wfs.log</fileName>
  </file>
</logging>

Caution

Log messages are continuously written to the same log file. The WFS application does not include any mechanism to truncate or rotate the log file in case the file size grows over a certain limit. So make sure you configure log rotation on your server.