How to Configure Log4Net file appender in C#?

I’ll be honest. Setting up Log4net for ASP.NET MVC apps is a pain. For better or worse, Log4net doesn’t error-out whenever things aren’t set up correctly; it fails silently (really it’s for the better, but it gets annoying!). Lately, I’ve been using this C# snippet to configure my logging. Just call the following method in your Global.asax.cs and you should be up and ready to go with Log4net!

private static void SetupLogging(bool removeAllOtherLoggers = false)
{
 var logFolder = GetSetting("LogFolder", @"c:\logs");
 var logFile = GetSetting("LogFile", @"c:\logs\MyLog.txt");
 if (!Directory.Exists(logFolder))
 {
 Directory.CreateDirectory(logFolder);
 }
 var hierarchy = (Hierarchy) LogManager.GetRepository();
 if (removeAllOtherLoggers)
 {
 hierarchy.Root.RemoveAllAppenders();
 }
 
 var fileAppender = new RollingFileAppender
 {
 AppendToFile = true,
 RollingStyle = RollingFileAppender.RollingMode.Size,
 LockingModel = new FileAppender.MinimalLock(),
 File = logFile,
 DatePattern = "yyyyMMdd",
 MaxSizeRollBackups = 10,
 MaximumFileSize = "5MB",
 Threshold = Level.Debug
 };
 var pl = new PatternLayout
 {
 ConversionPattern = "%date [%thread] %-5level %logger [%property{NDC}] - %message%newline"
 };
 pl.ActivateOptions();
 fileAppender.Layout = pl;
 fileAppender.ActivateOptions();

 BasicConfigurator.Configure(fileAppender);
 Trace.AutoFlush = true;
}