How can I decrypt the Messages sent from log4j over a socket?

Question

Hi,

can someone tell me how to decrypt the messages I get at the socket from org.apache.log4j.net.SocketAppender? I tried the Chainsaw-sources but I didn't find anything there :/

Or where does the message in log4j get encrypted?

Thanks

Answer 1

A logging source uses log4j to send log events to sinks like the console, a file or a socket. log4j doesn't chang the log messages, it just provides an API to collect and distribute the messages and provides some means to format log messages.

So if the messages are encrypted, then it's the sender that provides encrypted messages.

It could help if you edit your question and provide a small sample of an encrypted log messages.

Answer 2

The messages are not encrypted. They are LoggingEvent objects that have been serialized using a Java ObjectOutputStream : see org.apache.log4j.net.SocketAppender. One way to read them is to use Chainsaw, but you could always deserilize them yourself by wrapping the remote socket string in a Java ObjectInputStream, and replicating what Chainsaw does to read the events.

Answer 3

Chainsaw uses a SocketReceiver to process events sent by SocketAppender.

See http://logging.apache.org/log4j/companions/receivers/apidocs/org/apache/log4j/net/SocketReceiver.html