Server logs in ColdFusion are a must-have resource to help you tune, monitor, and troubleshoot your servers. But what happens when there is too much information? By default, the maximum file size is 5MB. Once it hits that size, it rolls into an archive file, appending a number to the filename. By default, up to 10 archives are stored before they are deleted upon the next archive. Based upon observations on ColdFusion 2021, the size limitation is ignored for “coldfusion-out” and “coldfusion-error” rolling over into archives around 20MB.
coldfusion-out.log directory listing and its archives.
But what if there’s so much information being logged that the logs become relatively useless? A prime example is “HTTP request” logging in coldfusion-out.log on a site that actively uses a third-party API. All you see are HTTP requests.
Example coldfusion-out.log HTTP request entry:
Jun 26, 2023 07:09:56 AM Information [ajp-nio-127.0.0.1-8012-exec-105] - Starting HTTP request {URL='https://apisite.com', method='GET'}
Jun 26, 2023 07:09:56 AM Information [ajp-nio-127.0.0.1-8012-exec-105] - HTTP request completed {Status Code=200 ,Time taken=137 ms}
You can change the “priority” variable value in the neo-logging.xml configuration files located in cf_root/lib (ex: C:\ColdFusion2021\production\lib\neo-logging.xml). This limits the logged messages based on message severity (type). Unfortunately, this setting is not documented or in the UI. You will need to restart ColdFusion for this setting to take effect.
Your options include the following:
- information (default)
- warning
- error
- fatal
I recommend changing the value to “warning”. Just remember, this will change all your logs.
Thanks to “cflog & fox server log level” thread comments on Adobe Support Community for leading me to the answer.
I was also made aware by Nimit Sharma on the ColdFusion #Adobe Slack Channel that you can disable HTTP logging for the http.log file. However, I do not believe this stops HTTP logging on the “coldfusion-out.log” file. If you are interested in this still, you can go to “Dugging and Logging” > “Log Files” in the ColdFusion Administrator (v2021), and in the actions column, press the disable logging button next to http.
Chris Tierney 