Requisites

logtail needs a few requisites to run:
  • JDK 1.4+. Logtail has been minimally tested with:
  • A servlet container supporting the 2.4 specification or higher. Logtail has been minimally tested with:
  • A web browser supporting JavaScript. Logtail includes the prototype JavaScript library, which is known to work with:
    • Microsoft Internet Explorer for Windows, version 6.0 and higher
    • Mozilla Firefox 1.0/Mozilla 1.7 and higher
    • Apple Safari 1.2 and higher

Configuration

Logtail config file

Go to logtail.war/WEB-INF/web.xml. Configure the context-parameter logtail-config to the path of the config-file (this is usually /WEB-INF/logtail-config.xml). Uncomment the security settings as stated in web.xml if you want to use the login mechanism. The configuration file is self-explanatory. We have added some comments in the file for your convinience. The only thing you should never do is to watch the logfiles of the webserver logtail is running in. You get an OutOfMemoryException in seconds.

Decorators

To colorize the logfile output logtail uses decorators that are specific to the logging system you use. They are configured in /WEB-INF/logtail-config.xml.

Apache Tomcat 5.x

Configure the security realm as described in the Tomcat Realm Howto. This is only needed if you want to use the security mechanisms. The users you configure there need the role "logtail" to get access.

JBoss 3.x

In JBoss you do not need to configure a security realm like in Tomcat. Just go to logtail.war/WEB-INF/classes/. Have a look at user.properties and roles.properties. Besides this just drop the war-file in the deploy directory.

JBoss 4.x

In JBoss 4.x the JBoss community decided to include the JSF implementation MyFaces. You can find details in the JBoss Wiki. But logtail needs a MyFaces version >=1.1.2. So follow the instruction to remove the MyFaces installation from JBoss. Besides this follow the JBoss 3.x instructions.

Build from Source

Maven

Logtail source code compilation is managed by Maven. Download and install Maven.

Source Code

Get the code one of these ways:

Compile

Compile the code with Maven.
mvn compile

mvn install

The WAR-file is created in a subdirectory named target. Continue with installation instructions.