Proposal: silverstripe-logviewer

[robbieaverill]

silverleague/silverstripe-logviewer

Specification: https://silverleague.github.io/complete/silverstripe-logviewer

Introduction

As a developer you may not be as aware of SilverStripe logging as you may want to be.

This module intends to add a Monolog logger which will log to a database table that can be rendered to an area of the CMS admin for easy viewing.

Why?

Because logs often go unnoticed, and since the 4.x framework has Monolog bundled with it, we can easily add a new LoggerInterface to push logs to the database. From here, they can easily be displayed in the admin as a GridField or similar.

Details

A new CMS section which displays a GridFields listing all log entries stored.

Columns could be: log content, date/time, log level.

Provide the filter to certain log levels, and allow the GridField to be filterable so I could search for "Deprecated" for example, or to filter by a date range. Handled by GridField.

We would implement a BuildTask and/or a CronTask which would clear the logs that are older than x days (7? 14? 30?). A button in the CMS admin interface would also allow you to clear old logs.

Export to CSV functionality would be useful as well. Handled by GridField.

Functionality

• Add new CMS interface to the admin area
• Create DataObject representing a log entry
• Add and configure new monolog LoggerInterface to push the log into a new LogEntry (for example)
• Implement filterable/searchable/orderable GridField in the CMS admin
• Add BuildTask/CronTask/both to remove old log entries automatically: Add BuildTask/CronTask/both to remove old log entries automatically silverstripe-logviewer#3
• Add button to CMS to remove all log entries manually: Add button to CMS to remove old log entries manually silverstripe-logviewer#4
• Configure the minimum log level to handle: Add SilverStripe config handling for which log levels should be handled silverstripe-logviewer#2

[anselmdk]

There is a simple log viewer here (which I recently upgraded to SS4): i-lateral/silverstripe-logviewer#2
Just for inspiration.

[gregsmirnov]

Heh, no SS3 upgrade :)

[robbieaverill]

Thanks, I'll take a look. @anselmdk do you think it's worth us doing this module as a "better" version of that?

[robbieaverill]

Just had a look. I think there's a good case to continue with this proposal.

[anselmdk]

So i-lateral's module basically loops through files in the logs directory. It's pretty basic, but works. I do like the idea though of using monolog to write to the database, which allows for more flexibility. I'm just not sure you'd always want to log everything to the database. Would it make sense to have 2 options?
Here's a screenshot of how the module looks like in SS4:

[robbieaverill]

Sounds good. Yeah, using monolog gives plenty of storage options. I think the DB will be the most native option for SS though. Writes are pretty lightweight so I shouldn't imagine too much of a performance impact.

[anselmdk]

Maybe falling back to the file system when the db is not available/experiencing issues?

[robbieaverill]

To be clear I was suggesting a second handler for this, not a replacement of whatever is already there

[anselmdk]

Ok, so you're suggesting that log files would still be written?

[robbieaverill]

Yes absolutely. We can add another handler specifically for this case

[robbieaverill]

I've added a quick proof of concept for this here: https://github.com/robbieaverill/silverstripe-logviewer

I'm happy to be the "maintainer". If we've got a co-maintainer and "advocate" then let's get moving with it!

[Firesphere]

I think it would be a good module to have. Although there needs to be a level of finetuning before writing to the database.

A good option would also be to have a level of logging (err/warn/info) to filter on.