log4net not working on production server

This is the log4net configuration in the web.config of the website.

<configuration>
      <log4net>
        <root>
          <level value="DEBUG" />
          <appender-ref ref="LogFileAppender" />
        </root>
        <appender name="LogFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender">
          <param name="File" value="log.txt" />
          <param name="AppendToFile" value="true" />
          <rollingStyle value="Size" />
          <maxSizeRollBackups value="10" />
          <maximumFileSize value="30MB" />
          <staticLogFileName value="false" />
          <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
            <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%-5p%d{yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss} – %m%n" />
          </layout>
        </appender>
      </log4net>
    </configuration>

I also have a class library and this is its App.config file




<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
  <configSections>
    <section name="log4net" type="log4net.Config.Log4NetConfigurationSectionHandler,Log4net"/>
  </configSections>
  <log4net>
    <root>
      <level value="DEBUG" />
      <appender-ref ref="LogFileAppender" />
    </root>
    <appender name="LogFileAppender" type="log4net.Appender.RollingFileAppender" >
      <param name="File" value="log.txt" />
      <param name="AppendToFile" value="true" />
      <rollingStyle value="Size" />
      <maxSizeRollBackups value="10" />
      <maximumFileSize value="30MB" />
      <staticLogFileName value="true" />
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
        <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%-5p%d{yyyy-MM-dd hh:mm:ss} – %m%n" />
      </layout>
    </appender>
  </log4net>
</configuration>




This is how I call the log function on every class:

private static readonly ILog log = LogManager.GetLogger(typeof(AppDomain));

...and this is how i call it :

log.Error("\n\t=>" + ex.GetBaseException().Message + "\n\r" + " @ " + Environment.StackTrace);




Solution 1

It could be that you do not have permissions to write to the file 'log.txt'.

I don't know what the current directory would be but it's unlikely to be somewhere IIS can write to.

You need to create a folder somewhere and grant access for IIS to write to it, I understand you need to grant access to the IIS_IUSRS group and then specify the absolute path to that file. e.g.

<param name="File" value="D:\Logs\log.txt" />

..using the path to your preferred location.

Solution 2 

If the directory and the file is not being created, then most likely, the configuration is not being read (and therefore used) at runtime.

I always forget to add the single line of code for Log4net that hooks up the configuration. This code usually appears in the bootstrap class in the application (e.g. Global.asax for an ASP.NET app).

XmlConfigurator.Configure(new System.IO.FileInfo(configFile));  // configFile being the path to the file.

Instead of the above in-line, you can add this attribute to the AssemblyInfo.cs file:

[assembly: log4net.Config.XmlConfigurator(Watch = true)]

Either way, this will wire up log4net. More information is found in the Manual Configuration section of the log4net docs.

I am using VS2005, a website project, a web deployment project and Log4Net. I can use logging when I am developing locally. I can see the log files and everything is fine. When I build my website, (using the web deployment project), I use the deploy as a single DLL option. When I then check the locations of where my log files should be I cannot see any files. Is there a way to troubleshoot this. I don't think adding the debug value to the App Settings will help because I don't have a console because it is a website. EDIT I don't want the 150 rep to go to waste so one last time. I compared the internal trace from my dev environment to the trace from the production. My dev environment trace shows the call the Xml Configurator where the production one does not. I have code in the global.asax on application_start() method. I put debug code in there and it is getting called in dev but not in production. I think this is where the web deployment project is causing some issues. Does the global.asax get compiled into the single DLL? When I do a build in the deployment directory I see a global.compiled file. Must this go into the bin folder in production? Or is the global.asax code in the single DLL? Having both in the bin folder or the just the DLL didn't change anything. SOLUTION 3  Permissions were CORRECT. Turns out that using a web deployment project also creates a precompliled.config file in the root. I had not copied that to the production enivornment. As soon as that was in the everything worked. Sorry no one got the bounty. SOLUTION 4 When ASP.NET application is deployed on IIS, its identity is IIS account (It is NETWORK SERVICE for IIS 7 by default). You can use Impersonation to impersonate a specific user to perform operations by using the authenticated user's identity or by using a specific Windows identity. For more information, see How To: Use Impersonation and Delegation in ASP.NET 2.0 (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms998351.aspx).  You also can check Window Event Viewer which records the exception of application in Application section and check out IIS logs.