Jira log files have different time formats

Question

Hi

I have a question about Jira logging.

In server i have 3 types of log files and all of them have 3 types of time formats

1. Access_log ( [27/Aug/2019:20:53:29 +0300] )

2. Atlassian-Jira-gc... ( 2019-09-19T10:30:30.715+0300 )

3. Catalina.out ( Sep 17, 2019 9:26:40 AM )

Is there any way to change these time formats all same because this company where I work has strict policies and it's required to log all file the same time format.

Best Wishes

Magnus

Magnus Tamm · Answer

Found that access log get's it format from server.xml but the date part in there is just described as "%t". Can I modify this?

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Yes, these can be changed, and I'd really appreciate it if they were standardised too.  Much as I appreciate the simplicity and speed of a raw unprocessed log, and one log style does not fit all, I do wish the world of computing would at least stick to a single date style. (Anything but a US style date would work - a date/time should always be most significant to least, or the opposite.  Never middle-significance, least, most - that's inarguably wrong).

The reason we get different styles is that there are three (well, more) "technologies" involved.

Jira (Atlassian) runs on Tomcat (Apache), which runs in a Java Virtual Machine (several vendors, but they tend to use the same date formats)

* The JVM is generating the GC logs
* Tomcat is generating the access and catalina logs
* You didn't mention it, but Jira is generating a pile of logs in <jira home>/log as well, and those start with "2019-09-20 00:34:41,793" - yet another one.

I don't know what to do with the GC logs, I've not delved into java enough.

Tomcat logging I have changed and I started with (an older version of) https://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-8.5-doc/logging.html

Most Atlassian applications use log4j (although I think they're moving away from it).  I've not messed with the dates in that, but I am sure you can, and it is at least all in one place - the applications that do use it all have a "log4j.properties" file somewhere.