Getting Started

Kolja uses the KOLJA_HOME environment variable for accessing config files and libraries.

export KOLJA_HOME=...

To get started use the following log4j appender, which is already configured.

<appender name="ALL" class="org.apache.log4j.FileAppender">
        <param name="File" value="kolja.log" />
        <param name="Append" value="false" />
        <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
                <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d [%t] %-5p %c - %m%n" />
        </layout>
</appender>

Then the kolja configuration should automatically parse your log files.

tail.sh -x kolja mylogfile.log

Further Improvements

For request based systems consider putting a unique request id in the log files. Each log entry will be associated with its request. Also make sure important information for the request e.g. user, ip address is logged.

    MDC.put("request", RequestId.generate());
    try {
        log.info("user: " + getUser());
        log.info("request url: " + getUrl());
    
        performRequest();
    } finally {
        MDC.remove("request");
    }

<appender name="ALL" class="org.apache.log4j.FileAppender">
        <param name="File" value="kolja.log" />
        <param name="Append" value="false" />
        <layout class="org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout">
                <param name="ConversionPattern" value="%d [%t] [%X{request}] %-5p %c - %m%n" />
        </layout>
</appender>