Dropwizard Web Logger

WebLoggerBundle is a Dropwizard bundle used to help log web activity to log files on a server's backend.

###Example

####Make Call Send a POST request to:

http://localhost:8000/<web-app-name>/api/web-logger/events/<eventName>

Example

http://localhost:8000/<web-app-name>/api/web-logger/events/jump

with the body content:

{"height":"42feet","name":"douglas"}

and the following configuration:

webLogger:
  eventNames: [jump, highfive]

####A Line is Logged Logger will log the following line to a file on a specific backend

{"name":"douglas","eventName":"jump","height":"42feet","timestamp":"2016-03-07 10:41:38 UTC"}

###Fixed Fields Fixed fields will be added to all logged lines.

Type	Description
Timestamp	The timestamp of the log will be logged as yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss z in UTC

Usage

1. Add the com.palantir.weblogger:dropwizard-web-logger:<VERSION> dependency to your project's build.gradle file. The most recent version number can be found by looking at the Releases Page. The dependencies section should look something like this:

   dependencies {
   	// ... unrelated dependencies omitted ...
   	compile "com.palantir.dropwizard:dropwizard-web-logger:<VERSION>"
   }
   

2. Modify your server's configuration file

   a. Add webLogger to your yml file and enable it. server.yml

       webLogger:
         enabled: <true|false> # optional - defaults to true
         eventNames: [<EventNames>]
   

   Example

   	webLogger:
   	  enabled: true
   	  eventNames: [jump, highfive, run]
   

   b. Add an appender of type web-logger to your Dropwizard configuration YAML in the logging section: server.yml

         - type: web-logger
           currentLogFileName: ./var/log/<APPNAME>-usage.json.log
           archivedLogFilenamePattern: ./var/log/<APPNAME>-usage-%d.json.log
           archivedFileCount: <NUMBER_OF_LOGFILES_TO_ARCHIVE>
   

   Example

       logging:
         appenders:
           - type: file
             currentLogFilename: var/log/server.log
             archivedLogFilenamePattern: var/log/server-%d.log
             archivedFileCount: 5
             timeZone: UTC
             threshold: INFO
           - type: console
             threshold: INFO
           - type: web-logger
             currentLogFilename: ./var/log/fe-logger-usage.json.log
             archivedLogFilenamePattern: ./var/log/fe-logger-usage-%d.json.log
             archivedFileCount: 5
   

3. Have your configuration implement WebLoggerConfigurationProvider:

    public final class ExampleApplicationConfiguration extends Configuration
            implements WebLoggerConfigurationProvider {
   
        private final WebLoggerConfiguration webLogger;
   
        @JsonCreator
        public ExampleApplicationConfiguration(
            @JsonProperty("webLogger") WebLoggerConfiguration webLogger) {
   
            this.webLogger = webLogger;
        }
   
        @Override
        public WebLoggerConfiguration getWebLogger() {
            return this.webLogger;
        }
    }
   

4. Add the bundle to your Dropwizard application.

    @Override
    public void initialize(Bootstrap<ExampleApplicationConfiguration> bootstrap) {
        bootstrap.addBundle(new WebLoggerBundle());
    }
   

Errors

If an eventName is passed in that isn't specified in the configuration file, a user will get the follow error:

{
  "code": 400,
  "message": "The eventName provided is not specified in the configuration."
}

The log will not be recorded.

Setting up the project with an IDE

with Eclipse, import the project and run:

    ./gradlew eclipse

with IntelliJ, import the project and run:

    ./gradlew idea

Authentication and Security

While it is possible to use this bundle without requiring user authentication or handling possible XSRF (cross-site request forgery) issues, the data collected by the event logger would likely not be useful.

It is strongly recommended that this bundle be used together with authentication and XSRF prevention.