Adjusting Log Levels to persist after portal restart

Issue

• Log levels that have been adjusted through the Server Administration are reset after a server restart. I'd like the log levels adjustments to persist after restarts.

Environment

• DXP 7.0+

Resolution

• Adjust log levels using a portal-log4j-ext.xml file. Please note that this method works only for classes from the core portal implementation portal-impl. To override the default log level of a class in a specific OSGi module, please see https://help.liferay.com/hc/en-us/articles/360018168751-Adjusting-Module-Logging.

  1. Find and open up portal-impl.jar:
     • Path for 7.3 and before: webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib/ 
     • Path for 7.4 and later: webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/shielded-container-lib/
  2. Inside portal-impl.jar, navigate to the META-INF folder.
  3. Copy the portal-log4j.xml file to webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/META-INF.
  4. Navigate to webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes/META-INF, and rename the copied portal-log4j.xml file toportal-log4j-ext.xml.
  5. Open up the file and modify the priority levels of the categories as desired. Note that Log4j2 is used from 7.4. For example, if you'd like to add DEBUG logs for com.liferay.portal.events.LoginPreAction, change the category's priority level like the following:
     • 7.3 and before
       

       <category name="com.liferay.portal.events.LoginPreAction">
           <priority value="DEBUG" />
       </category>

     • 7.4 and later

       <Logger level="DEBUG" name="com.liferay.portal.events.LoginPreAction" />

  6. Save changes made to the portal-log4j-ext.xml file and start up Liferay.

Additional Information

• Using the Server Administration Panel > Configuring Logging
• Adjusting Module Logging