Hey,

Unfortunately I never managed to get this working. Tried various different methods, but nothing would log in to the DB at all. Tried some other SeriLog plugins too, and none seemed to work with Umbraco.

hey there,

i gave up with trying to write to a sql server table in the end... spent hours on it to no avail...

however i did get writing to azure table storage working - which thinking about it it's probably faster than sql server (the only drawback being it's only useful if you have azure...)

the main thing i found was you need to remove the json logger in the serilog.config and replace it with your own logger. if you configure it in the serilog.user.config logging will write to the json file AND the azure table...

confusingly i thought the serilog.user.config file would be a way to configure multiple logs but there's no way to switch the log to view in the backoffice so for my purposes, it's kinda useless...

so the first thing you'll need is the https://www.nuget.org/packages/Serilog.Sinks.AzureTableStorage/ package

then edit the serilog.config replacing the json logger with:

<add key="serilog:using:AzureTableStorage" value="Serilog.Sinks.AzureTableStorage" />
<add key="serilog:write-to:AzureTableStorage.formatter" value="Serilog.Formatting.Compact.CompactJsonFormatter, Serilog.Formatting.Compact" />
<add key="serilog:write-to:AzureTableStorage.connectionString" value="xxxFromAzurexxx" />
<add key="serilog:write-to:AzureTableStorage.storageTableName" value="UmbracoLog" />

couple of things to note:

the Serilog.Formatting.Compact.CompactJsonFormatter, Serilog.Formatting.Compact will ensure the logging format matches the format the backoffice expects meaning you'll be able to view the log as normal

the serilog:write-to:AzureTableStorage.storageTableName value of UmbracoLog is different to the default name that the plugin uses. you can set it to whatever you like

the last piece of the puzzle is writing a class that displays the log in the backoffice:

public class AzureTableLogViewer : LogViewerSourceBase
{
    public override bool CanHandleLargeLogs => true;

    public override bool CheckCanOpenLogs(LogTimePeriod logTimePeriod)
    {
        //this method will not be called as we have indicated that this 'CanHandleLargeLogs'
        throw new NotImplementedException();
    }

    protected override IReadOnlyList<LogEvent> GetLogs(LogTimePeriod logTimePeriod, ILogFilter filter, int skip, int take)
    {
        var cloudStorage = CloudStorageAccount.Parse("xxxFromAzurexxx");
        var tableClient = cloudStorage.CreateCloudTableClient();
        var table = tableClient.GetTableReference("UmbracoLog");

        var logs = new List<LogEvent>();
        var count = 0;

        var query = new TableQuery<LogEventEntity>().Where(
            TableQuery.CombineFilters(
                TableQuery.GenerateFilterConditionForDate("Timestamp", QueryComparisons.GreaterThanOrEqual, logTimePeriod.StartTime.Date),
                TableOperators.And,
                TableQuery.GenerateFilterConditionForDate("Timestamp", QueryComparisons.LessThanOrEqual, logTimePeriod.EndTime.Date.AddDays(1).AddSeconds(-1))
                )
            );

        var results = table.ExecuteQuery(query);

        foreach (var entity in results)
        {
            var logItem = LogEventReader.ReadFromString(entity.Data);

            if (count > skip + take)
            {
                break;
            }

            if (count < skip)
            {
                count++;
                continue;
            }

            if (filter.TakeLogEvent(logItem))
            {
                logs.Add(logItem);
            }

            count++;
        }

        return logs;
    }

    public override IReadOnlyList<SavedLogSearch> GetSavedSearches()
    {
        return base.GetSavedSearches();
    }

    public override IReadOnlyList<SavedLogSearch> AddSavedSearch(string name, string query)
    {
        return base.AddSavedSearch(name, query);
    }

    public override IReadOnlyList<SavedLogSearch> DeleteSavedSearch(string name, string query)
    {
        return base.DeleteSavedSearch(name, query);
    }
}

this then needs to be wired up in your composer:

[RuntimeLevel(MinLevel = RuntimeLevel.Run)]
public class Logging : IUserComposer
{
    public void Compose(Composition composition)
    {
        composition.SetLogViewer<AzureTableLogViewer>();
    }
}

it works well and based on the site i'm using it with (an ecommerce site that write a lot of json into the logs) it's pretty snappy

hope that helps!

Hey Jake, Thanks for this!