Logging User Activity

LeonaLog has been built using a client-server architecture model in which the user interface retrieves all data via a collection of REST APIs. Thus logging relevant user activity, in other words, an access log, is simply a matter of enabling a built-in feature. It logs all requests to the leona REST API and produces an access log augmented by additional information, like the user name, the remote address, and the user agent.

Configuring the Access Log

The Access Log is configured by adding an appender and logger to the Log4j2 configuration file (log4j2.xml). The following example demonstrates the required additions on top of the normal logging configuration:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<Configuration packages="org.graylog2.log4j" shutdownHook="disable">
    <Appenders>
        <!-- Simple appender that writes access log to specified file -->
        <File name="RestAccessLog" fileName="/var/log/leona/server/restaccess.log" append="true">
            <PatternLayout pattern="%d %-5p: %c - %m%n"/>
        </File>
    </Appenders>
    <Loggers>
        <!-- RestAccessLogFilter -->
        <Logger name="org.graylog2.rest.accesslog" level="debug" additivity="false">
                <AppenderRef ref="RestAccessLog" level="debug"/>
                <AppenderRef ref="STDOUT" level="info"/>
        </Logger>
    </Loggers>
</Configuration>