In the previous post I revisited my sample .NET application that used Apache log4net and Azure Application Insights. This post updates the application to .NET Core V3.1.

I had to remove the ability to set the instrumentation key via the command line as I couldn’t get it to work.

I tried initialising the logger after loading the telemetry configuration, passing the InstrumentationKey in as a parameter of the TelemetryConfiguration constructor etc. and it made no difference.

The only other option that appeared to work was setting the instrumentation key via an Environment Variable called APPINSIGHTS_INSTRUMENTATIONKEY

   class Program
   {
      private static ILog log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);

      static void Main(string[] args)
      {
         using (TelemetryConfiguration telemetryConfiguration = TelemetryConfiguration.CreateDefault())
         {
            TelemetryClient telemetryClient = new TelemetryClient(telemetryConfiguration);

            var logRepository = LogManager.GetRepository(Assembly.GetEntryAssembly());
            XmlConfigurator.Configure(logRepository, new FileInfo(Path.Combine(Environment.CurrentDirectory, "log4net.config")));

            log.Debug("This is a Log4Net Debug message");
            log.Info("This is a Log4Net Info message");
            log.Warn("This is a Log4Net Warning message");
            log.Error("This is a Log4Net Error message");
            log.Fatal("This is a Log4Net Fatal message");

            telemetryClient.Flush();
         }

         Console.WriteLine("Press <enter> to exit");
         Console.ReadLine();
      }
   }

I updated the Log4Net setup to use the ManagedColoredConsoleAppender which required a couple of modifications to the Log4Net.config file. (Initially it was failing because I was using the non US spelling of log4net.Appender.ManagedColoredConsoleAppender)

 <appender name="ColoredConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ManagedColoredConsoleAppender">
      <mapping>
         <level value="ERROR" />
         <foreColor value="White" />
         <backColor value="Red" />
      </mapping>
      <mapping>
         <level value="DEBUG" />
         <backColor value="Green" />
      </mapping>
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
         <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
      </layout>
   </appender>

I did notice that after a several seconds while waiting for the enter key to be pressed there were a number of exceptions which warrants further investigation.

devMobile.Azure.ApplicationInsightsLog4NetCoreClient.Program: 2020-04-08 17:14:23,455 [1] FATAL devMobile.Azure.ApplicationInsightsLog4NetCoreClient.Program – This is a Log4Net Fatal message
‘ApplicationInsightsLog4NetCoreClient.exe’ (CoreCLR: clrhost): Loaded ‘C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App\3.1.3\System.Security.Cryptography.Encoding.dll’.
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Net.Http.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Net.Http.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Net.Http.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
Exception thrown: ‘System.Threading.Tasks.TaskCanceledException’ in System.Private.CoreLib.dll
The program ‘[13920] ApplicationInsightsLog4NetCoreClient.exe’ has exited with code 0 (0x0).
The program ‘[13920] ApplicationInsightsLog4NetCoreClient.exe: Program Trace’ has exited with code 0 (0x0).

A sample project is available here.

In a previous post I showed how we configured a client’s application to use Apache log4net and Azure Application Insights.

I modified the code to allow the Instrumentation Key input via a command line parameter or from the ApplicationInsights.config file.

class Program
{
   private static ILog log = log4net.LogManager.GetLogger(System.Reflection.MethodBase.GetCurrentMethod().DeclaringType);

   static void Main(string[] args)
   {
      if (( args.Length != 0) && (args.Length != 1 ))
      {
         Console.WriteLine("Usage AzureApplicationInsightsClientConsole");
         Console.WriteLine("      AzureApplicationInsightsClientConsole <instrumentationKey>");
         return;
      }

      if (args.Length == 1)
      {
         TelemetryConfiguration.Active.InstrumentationKey = args[0];
      }

      log.Debug("This is a Log4Net Debug message");
      log.Info("This is a Log4Net Info message");
      log.Warn("This is a Log4Net Warning message");
      log.Error("This is an Log4Net Error message");
      log.Fatal("This is a Log4Net Fatal message");

      TelemetryConfiguration.Active.TelemetryChannel.Flush();

      Console.WriteLine("Press <enter> to exit>");
      Console.ReadLine();
   }
}

I updated the Log4Net setup to use the ManagedColoredConsoleAppender which required a couple of modifications to the Log4Net.config file. (I had to remove HighIntensity)

 <appender name="ColoredConsoleAppender" type="log4net.Appender.ManagedColoredConsoleAppender">
      <mapping>
         <level value="ERROR" />
         <foreColor value="White" />
         <backColor value="Red" />
      </mapping>
      <mapping>
         <level value="DEBUG" />
         <backColor value="Green" />
      </mapping>
      <layout type="log4net.Layout.PatternLayout">
         <conversionPattern value="%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline" />
      </layout>
   </appender>

A sample project is available here.