Log settings¶

Vonk uses Serilog for logging. The logging settings are controlled in json configuration files called logsettings(.*).json. The files are read in a hierarchy, exactly like the appsettings files are. Vonk comes with default settings in logsettings.default.json. You can adjust the way Vonk logs its information by overriding these default settings in logsettings.json. You need to create this logsettings.json yourself.

Alternatively you can control Log settings with Environment Variables.

Changing the log event level¶

Serilog defines several levels of log events. From low to high, these are Verbose, Debug, Information, Warning, Error and Fatal. You can set the minimum level you want to log, meaning that events for that level or higher will be logged. By default, Vonk uses Error as the minimum level of recording information.

To change the level of logging, follow these steps:

Navigate to your Vonk working directory.

Open logsettings.json in a text editor and find this settings:

"MinimumLevel": {
        "Default": "Error",
},

Change the setting for Default from Error to the level you need, from the choice of Verbose, Debug, Information, Warning, Error and Fatal.

You can deviate from the default mimimum level for specific namespaces. You do this by specifying the namespace and the log event level you would like for this namespace, for example:

"MinimumLevel": {
        "Default": "Error",
        "Override": {
                "Vonk": "Warning"
        }
},

Some additional namespaces you might want to log are:

Vonk.Configuration to log configuration information on startup
Vonk.Core.Licensing to show license information in your logs
Vonk.Repository.Sql, Vonk.Repository.MongoDb or Vonk.Repository.Memory to log repository events
Microsoft to log events from the Microsoft libraries
System to log events from the System libraries

Please note that the namespaces are evaluated in order from top to bottom, so more generic ‘catch all’ namespaces should be at the bottom of the list. So this will log events on Vonk.Repository.Sql on Information level:

"MinimumLevel": {
        "Default": "Error",
        "Override": {
                "Vonk.Repository.Sql": "Information",
                "Vonk": "Warning"
        }
},

But in this (purposefully incorrect) example the Warning level on the Vonk namespace will override the Information level on the Vonk.Repository.Sql namespace:

"MinimumLevel": {
        "Default": "Error",
        "Override": {
                "Vonk": "Warning",
                "Vonk.Repository.Sql": "Information"
        }
},

Changing the sink¶

Another setting you can adjust is WriteTo. This tells Serilog which sink(s) to log to. Serilog provides several sinks, and for Vonk you can use Console, ColoredConsole, RollingFile and Seq.

RollingFile¶

For the RollingFile sink, you can specify the location of the log files with the pathFormat argument. Please include the {Date}, {Hour} or {HalfHour} placeholder, so Serilog can add date and time information to your filename.

Navigate to your Vonk working directory.

Open logsettings.json in a text editor and find the WriteTo setting:

"WriteTo": [
        { "Name": "ColoredConsole" },
        {
                "Name": "RollingFile",
                "Args": { "pathFormat": "c:/temp/vonk-{Date}.log" }
        },

Under RollingFile, change the location of the logfiles by editing the value for pathFormat. For example:

{
        "Name": "RollingFile",
        "Args": { "pathFormat": "c:/logfiles/vonk-{Hour}.log" }
},

You can also limit the size of the log file, which is 1GB by default, with the fileSizeLimitBytes option. If you set the value for this argument to null, you remove the limit. Serilog retains a maximum of 31 files. This value can also be removed or changed, by providing the retainedFileCountLimit argument:

{
        "Name": "RollingFile",
        "Args": { "pathFormat": "c:/logfiles/vonk-{Hour}.log", "retainedFileCountLimit": "24" }
},

Seq¶

For the Seq sink, you can also specify arguments. One of them is the server URL for your Seq server:

Navigate to your Vonk working directory.

Open logsettings.json in a text editor and find the Seq sink under the WriteTo setting:

"WriteTo": [
        {
                "Name": "Seq",
                "Args": { "serverUrl": "http://localhost:5341" }
        }

Change serverUrl to the URL of your Seq server

All sinks¶

For all sinks, you can set a restriction on the minimum log event level. This is not an override of the MinimumLevel setting we discussed earlier, but rather a filter on the events that are logged. With this extra sink argument, you can for example log only a small portion of the events to the console, but all of them to the log file.

Navigate to your Vonk working directory.
Open logsettings.json in a text editor and find the sink you want to set the filter for under the WriteTo setting.

Add the restrictedToMinimumLevel argument to the Args of the sink:

"WriteTo": [
        {
                "Name": "ColoredConsole",
                "Args": { "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Warning" }
        },
],

Database details¶

Whether you use MongoDB or SQL Server, you can have Vonk log in detail what happens towards your database. Just set the appropriate loglevel to ‘Verbose’:

"MinimumLevel": {
        "Default": "Error",
        "Override": {
                "Vonk.Repository.Sql": "Verbose",
                "Vonk.Repository.MongoDb": "Verbose",
                "Vonk": "Warning"
        }
},

If you do so you probably don’t want all this detail in your console sink, so you can limit the level for that, see All sinks above.

Azure Application Insights¶

Vonk can also log to Azure Application Insights. What you need to do:

Create an Application Insights instance on Azure.
Get the InstrumentationKey from the Properties blade of this instance.

Add the correct sink to the logsettings.json:

"WriteTo": [
        {
                "Name": "ApplicationInsightsTraces",
                "Args": {
                        "instrumentationKey": "<the key you copied in step 2>",
                        "restrictedToMinimumLevel": "Verbose" //Or a higher level
                }
        },
],

This also enables Dependency Tracking for access to your database. This works for both SQL Server and MongoDB. And for the log sent to Seq if you enabled that.
If you set the level for Application Insights to Verbose, and combine that with Database details, you get all the database commands right into Application Insights.