Chandra,
Yes it is a new project. I’ve been working on it for quite some time. I
developed something like it for my former employer many years ago and it was
one of my primary motivations for starting Log4j 2. I am using this project at
my current employer.
A container is not required to perform basic Java audit logging, but a web
application was developed to edit and maintain the catalog as editing a JSON
file can become pretty tedious. A REST service is also provided to allow
non-Java apps to use the framework. The REST service also supports adding
“dynamic” catalogs and catalog entries. I suspect I didn’t even go into that in
the documentation on the web site.
Ralph
> On Feb 5, 2018, at 8:20 AM, Chandra <chandra.tungathur...@rwth-aachen.de>
> wrote:
>
> Hi Remko,
>
> +1 for the top page feedback. This is the first time I’m looking at this (is
> this a new project under log4j?).
>
> Also, is a container (tomcat or others ) a requirement? if it is I do not see
> it in the requirements section. I assumed it was an api either using or built
> on top of log4j2
>
>
> Best,
> Chandra
>
> On 5 Feb 2018, 8:44 PM +0530, Ralph Goers <ralph.go...@dslextreme.com>, wrote:
>> Remko,
>>
>> Thanks for all the good feedback! That is exactly what I was looking for.
>>
>> I won’t answer the questions you posed here. Instead, I will try to correct
>> the web site to see if it does the job.
>>
>> Ralph
>>
>>> On Feb 5, 2018, at 8:04 AM, Remko Popma <remko.po...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> About the web site, the project seems to have components, but the component
>>> links in the left-hand navigation menu are not very useful:
>>> If you click on "Audit API" for example, only some standard Maven-generated
>>> component links/pages are visible, no javadoc or sources in the Component
>>> Reports.
>>> Also the selected component should stay highlighted in the left-hand menu
>>> like we do for the Log4j 2 web site.
>>>
>>> The Javadoc page at the top of the left-hand navigation menu seems broken:
>>> it shows the Log4j 2 modules, not the log4j-audit modules.
>>> The submenu links under Javadoc (e.g. Javadoc/Log4j Audit API) all give 404
>>> page not found errors.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 11:49 PM, Remko Popma <remko.po...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Some first impression feedback:
>>>>
>>>> Top page:
>>>> I think it is worth explaining the motivation/use case for audit logging
>>>> here. What is "audit logging"? How is audit logging different from "normal"
>>>> logging? What kind of applications would want to use audit logging and why?
>>>> What are audit events? How do audit events relate to log events?
>>>>
>>>> RequestContext page:
>>>> I had trouble following this page. The explanation is going too fast for
>>>> me and seems to be skipping over some steps. Is my understanding below
>>>> correct?
>>>> * Users must create a RequestContext to use audit logging (if true, best
>>>> to start by saying that)
>>>> * The reason users need to create a RequestContext is to have a single
>>>> container for all data points that users want to log in their audit log.
>>>> (Question: does this mean that RequestContext = Audit Event?)
>>>> * A recommended/convenient way to implement a RequestContext is to stuff
>>>> all values in the log4j ThreadContext (Question: is it really okay to
>>>> assume that the service container does not hand off requests to worker
>>>> threads?)
>>>> * The example RequestContext implementation is too long (and repetitive -
>>>> readers will get the point after a few attributes) - may be better to place
>>>> the full class in an example application and only show snippets in this
>>>> page (and perhaps link to the full example from the page)
>>>> * After the example follows some explanation about the annotations. Seems
>>>> pretty important stuff but is now just a wall of text. I would break it up
>>>> into sections with bold headers, a separate section for each annotation.
>>>> Current explanation of the annotations seems a bit too brief.
>>>> * RequestContextInterceptor example seems a bit long. Can you reduce it
>>>> to its essence or break it up? (Also formatting seems off and has missing
>>>> closing double quote in response.sendRedirect("/login); , but does this
>>>> page really need to contain a fully working example?)
>>>> * Finally, the the "passing context to service" section: are
>>>> RequestContextInterceptor and RequestContextHeaderInterceptor the same
>>>> thing?
>>>> * Does everyone using Spring know what " *The returned list should then
>>>> be added to the RestTemplate* " means? (I have no clue :-) but I am
>>>> Spring-ignorant.)
>>>>
>>>> Audit Catalog page:
>>>> The page mentions Products and Categories 3 times, every time saying "but
>>>> Log4j doesn't do anything with that". Why not just leave it out altogether
>>>> and not mention these?
>>>> Why is it called a Catalog? Perhaps explaining why this term is a good
>>>> name would help set the readers frame of thinking to understand the rest of
>>>> the page.
>>>> Also, do users need to create a catalog? Or is it something that emerges
>>>> automatically when one uses audit logging? What happens if you don't create
>>>> a catalog?
>>>>
>>>> Hope this is useful,
>>>> Remko
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Feb 5, 2018 at 2:35 PM, Ralph Goers <ralph.go...@dslextreme.com
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Well I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that I forgot my wife
>>>>> and I were having people over for the super bowl so I didn’t have as much
>>>>> time as I had hoped and I wasn’t able to run the Log4j 2.11.0 release
>>>>> build.
>>>>>
>>>>> The good news is that I think Log4j Audit V1.0 is about ready for a
>>>>> release. I have published the web site at https://rgoers.github.io/log4j
>>>>> -audit/index.html <https://rgoers.github.io/log4j-audit/index.html>.
>>>>> Some parts of the site will have problems since it hasn’t been released
>>>>> but
>>>>> I hope you could take a look at it and review it before a release vote is
>>>>> attempted.
>>>>>
>>>>> You should also feel free to ask me questions here, but if it isn’t clear
>>>>> then I expect the web site needs more work.
>>>>>
>>>>> Ralph
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>
>>
