[ANNOUNCEMENT] Apache Log4j 2.12.1 released!

[Ralph Goers <rg...@apache.org>]

The Apache Log4j 2 team is pleased to announce the Log4j 2.12.1 release!

Apache Log4j is a well known framework for logging application behavior. 
Log4j 2 is an upgrade to Log4j that provides significant improvements 
over its predecessor, Log4j 1.x, and provides many other modern features 
such as support for Markers, lambda expressions for lazy logging, 
property substitution using Lookups, multiple patterns on a 
PatternLayout and asynchronous Loggers. Another notable Log4j 2 feature 
is the ability to be "garbage-free" (avoid allocating temporary objects) 
while logging. In addition, Log4j 2 will not lose events while 
reconfiguring.

The artifacts may be downloaded from 
https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/download.html.

This release contains bugfixes and minor enhancements.

Due to a break in compatibility in the SLF4J binding, Log4j now ships 
with two versions of the SLF4J to Log4j adapters. log4j-slf4j-impl 
should be used with SLF4J 1.7.x and earlier and log4j-slf4j18-impl 
should be used with SLF4J 1.8.x and later.

This release improves the performance of capturing location information, 
makes log4j-core optional in the log4j 1.2 bridge, and explicitly 
removes LoggerContext references from compoents that keep track of them 
when the LoggerContext is shut down. More details on the new features 
and fixes are itemized below.

Note that the XML, JSON and YAML formats changed in the 2.11.0 release: 
they no longer have the "timeMillis" attribute and instead have an 
"Instant" element with "epochSecond" and "nanoOfSecond" attributes.

The Log4j 2.12.1 API, as well as many core components, maintains binary 
compatibility with previous releases.

GA Release 2.12.1

Changes in this version include:

Fixed Bugs

     • LOG4J2-1946: Allow file renames to work when files are missing 
from the sequence. Thanks to Igor Perelyotov.
     • LOG4J2-2650: Support emulating a MAC address when using ipv6. 
Thanks to Mattia Bertorello.
     • LOG4J2-2366: Remove references to LoggerContext when it is shutdown.
     • LOG4J2-2644: Improve the performance of capturing location 
information.
     • LOG4J2-2658: AbstractAction.reportException records a warning to 
the status logger, providing more information when file based appenders 
fail to compress rolled data asynchronously.
     • LOG4J2-2659: AbstractAction handles and records unchecked 
RuntimeException and Error in addition to IOException.
     • LOG4J2-2667: Values not bound to statement" when using JDBC 
appender, appender does not respect bufferSize=“0”. Thanks to Edith Chui.
Changes

     • LOG4J2-2556: Make Log4j Core optional for Log4j 1.2 API.
     • LOG4J2-2646: Update MongoDB 3 driver from 3.10.1 to 3.10.2.
     • LOG4J2-2657: Improve exception messages in the JDBC appender.
     • LOG4J2-2660: Retry when JDBC throws a 
java.sql.SQLTransactionRollbackException in commitAndClose().
Apache Log4j 2.12.1 requires a minimum of Java 7 to build and run. Log4j 
2.3 was the last release that supported Java 6.

Basic compatibility with Log4j 1.x is provided through the log4j-1.2-api 
component, however it does not implement some of the very implementation 
specific classes and methods. The package names and Maven groupId have 
been changed to org.apache.logging.log4j to avoid any conflicts with 
log4j 1.x.

For complete information on Apache Log4j 2, including instructions on 
how to submit bug reports, patches, or suggestions for improvement, see 
the Apache Apache Log4j 2 website:

https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/