configuration overriding problem

[adnan-kamili]

Hi,

I have following serilog config in appsettings.json:

"Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Debug",
      "Override": {
        "Microsoft": "Information"
      }
    },
    "WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "Async",
        "Args": {
          "configure": [
            {
              "Name": "Console"
            },
            {
              "Name": "RollingFile",
              "Args": {
                "pathFormat": "Logs/log-{Date}.txt",
                "shared": true
              }
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  }

For production - appsettings.production.json:

  "Serilog": {
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Override": {
        "Microsoft": "Warning"
      }
    },
    "WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "Async",
        "Args": {
          "configure": [
            {
              "Name": "Console"
            }
          ]
        }
      }
    ]
  }

As can be seen, I tried to remove logging to file in production, but it still logs to file in production. How can I configure that behavior?

[nblumhardt]

Hi @adnan-kamili, thanks for getting in touch.

For production - appsettings.developement.json:

I am not sure I understand; production settings are normally in appsettings.Production.json. To turn off logging, it should be enough to have logging configuration in appsettings.Development.json only. Can you send a bit more info about how your solution is set up?

Best regards,
Nick

[adnan-kamili]

@nblumhardt it was a typo in the post, fixed that. It is appsettings.production.json wherein I only want console logging in production and disable file logging (as heroku moves console logs to Papertail automatically).

But removing file logging from production json still enables file logging. Seems like it is merging config from appsettings.json.

Note that file logging is only added in appsettings.json to act as default

[nblumhardt]

Hi @adnan-kamili - this sounds like it's by-design, then. Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration sources are always additive, so if you have file logging in appsettings.json it will always apply everywhere - there's no way for a more specific config file to turn it off. HTH!

[amoerie]

Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration sources are always additive, so if you have file logging in appsettings.json it will always apply everywhere - there's no way for a more specific config file to turn it off.

I actually think appsettings.production.json overrides settings with the same key path. See for example https://stackoverflow.com/questions/39215806/asp-net-core-1-appsettings-production-json-not-updating-connection-strings where the asker updates his connection string in production.json

Actually we are running into the same problem with our installers, overriding specific parameters is tricky because the sinks are configured as entries in an array, so instead of being able to "merge" two JSON objects, we would now have to merge the "WriteTo" array based on the value of the Name property of each sink.

Imho, a better approach would be to assign each sink a unique key.

For example, we now have this:

  "Serilog": {
    "Using": [ "Serilog.Sinks.Console", "Serilog.Sinks.File" ],
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Override": {
        "Microsoft": "Warning",
        "System": "Warning"
      }
    },
    "WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "Console",
        "Args": {
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Verbose"
        }
      },
      {
        "Name": "File",
        "Args": {
          "path": "C:/OurCompany/OurProduct/Logs/TheWebApplication-.log",
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "fileSizeLimitBytes": 1073741824,
          "retainedFileCountLimit": 62,
          "rollingInterval": "Day",
          "rollOnFileSizeLimit": true,
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Information"
        }
      }
    ],
    "Enrich": [ "FromLogContext" ]
  }

Now you can see, there is a hardcoded path in there to the C:\ drive. However, our product gets installed on enterprise servers where sometimes the C:\ drive is reserved for OS only, and a data drive D:\ is provided to install all applications. In this case, they would want to override this path with D:\OurCompany...

Unfortunately it is not feasible to use appsettings.production.json or any other JSON merging mechanism, because that would only result in 3 entries in the WriteTo array. You can see the limitations of JSON array merging in Newtonsoft JSON.NET: https://www.newtonsoft.com/json/help/html/T_Newtonsoft_Json_Linq_MergeArrayHandling.htm

If we could assign ids to each sink, the problem disappears:

  "Serilog": {
    "Using": [ "Serilog.Sinks.Console", "Serilog.Sinks.File" ],
    "MinimumLevel": {
      "Default": "Information",
      "Override": {
        "Microsoft": "Warning",
        "System": "Warning"
      }
    },
    "WriteTo": {
      "Console-Sink-1": {
        "Name": "Console",
        "Args": {
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Verbose"
        }
      },
      "File-Sink-1": {
        "Name": "File",
        "Args": {
          "path": "C:/OurCompany/OurProduct/Logs/TheWebApplication-.log",
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "fileSizeLimitBytes": 1073741824,
          "retainedFileCountLimit": 62,
          "rollingInterval": "Day",
          "rollOnFileSizeLimit": true,
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Information"
        }
      }
    },
    "Enrich": [ "FromLogContext" ]
  }

With this technique, JSON merging becomes easy. All we would need to do to update the path is provide a second JSON object like this:

  "Serilog": {
    "WriteTo": {
      "File-Sink-1": {
        "Args": {
          "path": "D:/OurCompany/OurProduct/Logs/TheWebApplication-.log",
         }
      }
    }
  }

[nblumhardt]

Thanks @amoerie.

I think your identifier technique will work currently, if you use indices as identifiers:

    "WriteTo": {
      "0": {
        "Name": "Console",
        "Args": {
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Verbose"
        }
      },

[amoerie]

Haha that's genius! Thanks!

[Tadimsky]

Other than doing the index-based workaround, is there any plan to make this support real ids/names? I don't like have 0 or 1 meaning something without it being more clear :)

[skomis-mm]

There was always support for such syntax:

    "WriteTo": {
      "Console-Sink-1": {
        "Name": "Console",
        "Args": {
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Verbose"
        }
      },
      "File-Sink-1": {
        "Name": "File",
        "Args": {
          "path": "C:/OurCompany/OurProduct/Logs/TheWebApplication-.log",
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "fileSizeLimitBytes": 1073741824,
          "retainedFileCountLimit": 62,
          "rollingInterval": "Day",
          "rollOnFileSizeLimit": true,
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Information"
        }
      }
    }

without using indexes. The index comes as convention for a key name when array syntax used:

"WriteTo": [
      {
        "Name": "Console",
        "Args": {
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Verbose"
        }
      },
      {
        "Name": "File",
        "Args": {
          "path": "C:/OurCompany/OurProduct/Logs/TheWebApplication-.log",
          "outputTemplate": "{Timestamp:yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.fff zzz} [{Level:u4}] {SourceContext} {Message}{NewLine}{Exception}",
          "fileSizeLimitBytes": 1073741824,
          "retainedFileCountLimit": 62,
          "rollingInterval": "Day",
          "rollOnFileSizeLimit": true,
          "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Information"
        }
      }
    ]

where Console has WriteTo:0 key path and File - WriteTo:1.