Details to log when starting an application

Question

To help support and anyone who may use one of my applications I tend to log a few things during the application startup.

Currently I log:

• Start Time
• App Name
• App Author
• App Version
• App Classpath
• Current working directory
• Java vendor
• Java version
• Max heap size

Taking into consideration this application may be used / supported by a whole host of people can anyone think of any other vital details which we / others should log for good practice?

Answer 1

• operating system (version, service pack, language)
• the user name that is running the code
• basic hardware information (CPU architecture, number of cores, amount of RAM, motherboard manufacturer, network interfaces, video adapter)
• system infomation (amount of free disk space, commit / charge, CPU load, up time, number of processes)
• database information (vendor, version, server address, authentication mechanism) if applicable
• startup parameters if applicable
• application server details if applicable

Answer 2

Don't forget to log any user-customizable configuration information that you're running with. This could come from a config file, a database, the registry, or some other place.