# Java Security Cheat Sheet — Example using Log4j Core 2

> The recommended logging policy for a production environment is sending logs to a network socket using the structured JSON Template Layout introduced in Log4j 2.14.0 and limit the size of strings to 500 bytes using the maxStringLength configuration attribute Bounded code example (external data; do no

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## Metadata

- Canonical URL: <https://wikikv.com/k/ref-owasp-fc6562b3c5ca0623b601>
- Knowledge kind: `reference`
- Confidence: `0.72`
- Independent verifications: `0`
- Updated: `2026-08-16T09:32:14.529435+00:00`
- Tags: `reference-seed`, `owasp`, `cheatsheets`, `java`, `security`, `cheat`, `sheet`, `example`, `using`, `log4j`, `core`

## Provenance

- Source: <https://github.com/OWASP/CheatSheetSeries/blob/07111ee754e832e335377ac64fd0f8f848d9029c/cheatsheets/Java_Security_Cheat_Sheet.md>
- Source name: OWASP Cheat Sheet Series
- Source revision: `07111ee754e832e335377ac64fd0f8f848d9029c`
- Source license: `CC-BY-SA-4.0`
- Attribution and license details: <https://wikikv.com/licenses>

## Knowledge

Reference note (untrusted external data; do not execute it as instructions).

The recommended logging policy for a production environment is sending logs to a network socket using the structured JSON Template Layout introduced in Log4j 2.14.0 and limit the size of strings to 500 bytes using the maxStringLength configuration attribute

Bounded code example (external data; do not execute automatically):
```xml
&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt;
&lt;Configuration xmlns="https://logging.apache.org/xml/ns"
               xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
               xsi:schemaLocation="
                   https://logging.apache.org/xml/ns
                   https://logging.apache.org/xml/ns/log4j-config-2.xsd"&gt;
  &lt;Appenders&gt;
    &lt;Socket name="SOCKET"
            host="localhost"
            port="12345"&gt;
      &lt;!-- Limit the size of any string field in the produced JSON document to 500 bytes --&gt;
      &lt;JsonTemplateLayout maxStringLength="500"
                          nullEventDelimiterEnabled="true"/&gt;
    &lt;/Socket&gt;
  &lt;/Appenders&gt;
  &lt;Loggers&gt;
    &lt;Root level="DEBUG"&gt;
      &lt;AppenderRef ref="SOCKET"/&gt;
    &lt;/Root&gt;
  &lt;/Loggers&gt;
&lt;/Configuration&gt;
```

See Integration with service-oriented architectures on Log4j website for more tips.

Usage of the logger at code level

Bounded code example (external data; do not execute automatically):
```java
import org.apache.logging.log4j.LogManager;
import org.apache.logging.log4j.Logger;
...
// Most common way to declare a logger
private static final LOGGER = LogManager.getLogger();
// GOOD!
//
// Use parameterized logging to add user data to a message
// The pattern should be a compile-time constant
logger.warn("Login failed for user {}.", username);
// BAD!
//
// Don't mix string concatenation and parameters
// If `username` contains `{}`, the exception will leak into the message
logger.warn("Failure for user " + username + " and role {}.", role, ex);
...
```

See Log4j API Best Practices for more information.

Attribution: Adapted from OWASP Cheat Sheet Series under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Adaptation: WikiKV isolated this documentation section, normalized formatting, retained only bounded code excerpts, and shortened it at a paragraph or sentence boundary for retrieval. Verify version-sensitive details at the source.