Chainsaw target

Sends log messages to the remote instance of Log4J XML Viewer applications (Like Chainsaw).

Platforms Supported: All

This target inherits from the Network Target, and so it has also all the properties of the Network Target available. Using the Log4JXmlEventLayout to produce Log4J XML output.

Configuration Syntax

<targets>
  <target xsi:type="Chainsaw"
          name="String"
          layout="Layout"
          newLine="Boolean"
          onOverflow="Enum"
          maxMessageSize="Integer"
          encoding="Encoding"
          connectionCacheSize="Integer"
          address="Layout"
          lineEnding="CRLF|LF|CR|None"
          maxConnections="Integer"
          maxQueueSize="Integer"
          keepConnection="Boolean"
          onConnectionOverflow="Enum"
          includeSourceInfo="Boolean"
          includeCallSite="Boolean"
          appInfo="String"
          ndcItemSeparator="String"
          includeNdc="Boolean">
    <parameter layout="Layout" name="String"/><!-- repeated -->
  </target>
</targets>

Read more about using the Configuration File.

Parameters

General Options

• name - Name of the target.

Layout Options

• layout - Instance of Log4JXmlEventLayout that is used to format log messages. Layout Default: Log4JXmlEventLayout

• encoding - Encoding to be used. Encoding Default: utf-8

• newLine - Indicates whether to append newline at the end of log message. Boolean Default: False

• lineEnding - Line Ending to be used if newLine is set to true. LineEndingMode Default: CRLF. Not used if newLine is false. Introduced in 4.3.8. Possible values:

  • CRLF - Carriage Return and Line Feed (ASCII 13, ASCII 10). (default)
  • CR - Carriage Return (ASCII 13).
  • LF - Line Feed (ASCII 10).
  • NULL - Null terminator (ASCII 0)
  • None - No end of line characters.

• maxMessageSize - Maximum message size in bytes. Integer Default: 65000

• onOverflow - Action that should be taken if the message-size is larger than maxMessageSize. Possible values:

  • Discard - Discard the entire message.
  • Error - Report an error.
  • Split - Split the message into smaller pieces (Default)

Connection Options

• connectionCacheSize - Size of the connection cache (number of connections which are kept alive). Integer Default: 5

• address - Network address. Layout The network address can be:

  • tcp://host:port - TCP (auto select IPv4/IPv6)
  • tcp4://host:port - force TCP/IPv4
  • tcp6://host:port - force TCP/IPv6
  • udp://host:port - UDP (auto select IPv4/IPv6)
  • udp4://host:port - force UDP/IPv4
  • udp6://host:port - force UDP/IPv6
  • http://host:port/pageName - HTTP using POST verb
  • https://host:port/pageName - HTTPS using POST verb For SOAP-based webservice support over HTTP use WebService target.

• keepConnection - Indicates whether to keep connection open whenever possible. Boolean Default: True

• maxConnections - Maximum current connections. 0 = no maximum. Integer Default: 16. Not used if keepConnection is true.

  Introduced with NLog v4.2.1. Default became 16 with NLog v4.5 (Before 0)

• onConnectionOverflow - Action that should be taken when open connections are higher than limit maxConnections.

  Introduced with NLog v4.2.1. Default became Block with NLog v4.5 (Before AllowNewConnnection)

  Possible enum values:

  • Discard - Discard new messages when reaching limit (Default) (Before NLog 5.0 it was enum value DiscardMessage)
  • Grow - Send message and ignore limit (Before NLog 5.0 it was enum value AllowNewConnnection)
  • Block - Block until pending connections has beeen freed.

• maxQueueSize - Maximum queue size for a single connection. 0 means no limit. Integer. Default: 10000 (Before NLog 5.0 the default was 0)

  NLog 4.6.7 enabled queue-support for http/https and NLog 4.7.1 activated this setting for http/https. NLog 5.0.0 enabled queue-support for UDP.

• onQueueOverflow - Action that should be taken if pending queue of messages is larger than maxQueueSize.

  Introduced with NLog 5.0

  • Discard - Discard the entire message (Default)
  • Grow - Ignore limit and grow the queue.
  • Block - Block until queue is below limit.

Payload Options

• IncludeEventProperties - Include all events properties of a logevent? Default: true.

  Before NLog 5.0 option was named IncludeAllProperties and had default false.

• IncludeScopeProperties - Indicates whether to include ScopeContext Properties dictionary. Default: false.

  Before NLog 5.0 option was named IncludeMdlc or IncludeMdc

• includeSourceInfo - Indicates whether to include source info (file name and line number) in the information sent over the network. Boolean

• includeCallSite - Indicates whether to include call site (class and method name) in the information sent over the network. Boolean

• IncludeScopeNested - Indicates whether to include ScopeContext Nested Stack as NDC. Default: false.

  Before NLog 5.0 option was named IncludeNdlc

• ScopeNestedSeparator - NDC item separator. Default:

  Before NLog 5.0 option was named NdlcItemSeparator

• includeNdc - Indicates whether to include ScopeContext Nested Stack. Default: false.

• ndcItemSeparator - NDC item separator. Default:

• appInfo - AppInfo field. By default it's the friendly name of the current AppDomain.

• loggerName - Logger field. By default it's the output of ${logger}

  Introduced in NLog 4.5

• formattedMessage - Message field. By default it's the output of ${message}

  Introduced in NLog 5.3

• parameter - Additional context properties that should be included.

  • name - Name of Parameter. Required.
  • layout - The layout for the Parameter-Value. Required.

Example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<nlog throwConfigExceptions="true">

  <targets>
    <target name="log4j" xsi:type="Chainsaw" address="udp://127.0.0.1:5001" />
  </targets>

  <rules>
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="log4j" />
  </rules>
</nlog>

Available Log4J-XML viewers (See also LogViewer Tools)

• Sentinel - Avoid using TCP since not complete.
• Log2Console
• Logazmic
• Loginator
• Logbert
• LogViewer
• Lilith
• OtrosLogViewer

Notice that most Log4J-XML viewers will drop messages and stall when NLog sends messages at full speed. One can consider to throttle NLog like this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<nlog throwConfigExceptions="true">

  <targets>
    <target name="throttle_log4j" type="AsyncWrapper" timeToSleepBetweenBatches="100" batchSize="1" overflowAction="Block">
      <target name="log4j" type="Chainsaw" address="tcp://127.0.0.1:5001" newline="true" />
    </target>
  </targets>

  <rules>
    <logger name="*" minlevel="Trace" writeTo="throttle_log4j" />
  </rules>
</nlog>