User tracking logging in Grails

Hi peeps

Thought i would just do a quick post about how to create a custom logging filter for logging which pages a user went to.

First setup log4j config to add a new apppender nd logger called utlog (usage tracking)

 def utLog = "${System.properties.getProperty('catalina.base')}${File.separator}logs${File.separator}utlog.log"  
 println utLog  
 log4j = {  
  appenders {  
   rollingFile name: 'utlog', file: utLog, layout: pattern(conversionPattern: '%d{dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss,SSS}|%p|%c{1}|%X{userId}|%X{sessionId}|%m%n'), maxFileSize: '10MB', threshold: org.apache.log4j.Level.DEBUG  
   console name: 'stdout', layout:pattern(conversionPattern: '%d{dd-MM-yyyy HH:mm:ss,SSS}|%p|%c{1}|%X{userId}|%X{sessionId}|%m%n'), threshold: org.apache.log4j.Level.DEBUG  
  }  
  error 'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.servlet', // controllers  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages', // GSP  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.sitemesh', // layouts  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping.filter', // URL mapping  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping', // URL mapping  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons', // core / classloading  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins', // plugins  
      'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.orm.hibernate', // hibernate integration  
      'org.springframework',  
      'org.hibernate',  
      'net.sf.ehcache.hibernate'  
  warn 'org.mortbay.log'    
  info utlog: ['ut'],additivity:true  
 }  

Next create a filter that uses Spring security plugin to fetch the current logged in user:

 class UsageTrackingFilters {  
   def springSecurityService  
   private static final Log usagetrackingLog = LogFactory.getLog('ut')  
   def filters = {  
     all(controller: '*', action: '*') {  
       before = {  
         String sessionId = RequestContextHolder.getRequestAttributes()?.getSessionId()  
         if (sessionId) {  
           MDC.put('sessionId', sessionId)  
         }  
         if (springSecurityService.isLoggedIn()) {  
           def userId = springSecurityService.getPrincipal().id  
           MDC.put('userId', userId + "")  
         }else{  
           MDC.put('userId', "0")  
         }  
         usagetrackingLog.info(request.getRequestURI())  
       }  
       after = {  
       }  
       afterView = {  
         MDC.remove('sessionId')  
         MDC.remove('userId')  
       }  
     }  
   }  
 }  

That is it