Configuration using the web module

All,

I have a web application which contains a log4j2.xml file in the WEB-INF 
directory. If I provide the full path using 
-Dlog4j.configurationFile=[path]/log4j2.xml, then log4j configures as I 
expect. Without this parameter, log4j does not find the configuration file.

I have the log2j libraries api, core, web, and 1.2 all installed into 
the web application. The web module configuration reference[1] says that 
files called log4j2* will be searched-for in the WEB-INF directory, but 
it looks like my file is not found.

I enabled debug logging, and this is what log4j says during 
autoconfiguration:

DEBUG StatusLogger Using configurationFactory 
org.apache.logging.log4j.core.config.ConfigurationFactory$Factory@3fed9a4
TRACE StatusLogger Trying to find [log4j2-test35dba0ad.properties] using 
context class loader ParallelWebappClassLoader

There follow a series of attempts to find files called 
log4j2-test35dba0ad.(properties|yml|yaml) and 
log4j2-test.(properties|yml|yaml) using the ParallelWebappClassLoader 
(which is the ClassLoader provided by Apache Tomcat). The ClassLoader 
will only look for resources in WEB-INF/lib/*.jar and WEB-INF/classes 
but not WEB-INF itself. Looking in WEB-INF/ requires a different kind of 
look-up.

This is also present in the log:

TRACE StatusLogger Trying to find [log4j2-test35dba0ad.properties] using 
ClassLoader.getSystemResource().

This is falling-back to using the system classloader, which of course 
won't find this file.

I think the documentation may be wrong; log4j doesn't appear to be 
looking in WEB-INF/ for files. Instead, it's using the ClassLoader which 
won't look there.

Moving my log4j2.xml file from WEB-INF/ to WEB-INF/classes allows log4j 
to find the file and use it for configuration as expected.

-chris

[1] https://logging.apache.org/log4j/2.x/manual/webapp.html