How to use MDC with thread pools?

Question

In our software we extensively use MDC to track things like session IDs and user names for web requests. This works fine while running in the original thread. However, there's a lot of things that need to be processed in the background. For that we use the java.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor and java.util.Timer classes along with some self-rolled async execution services. All these services manage their own thread pool.

This is what Logback's manual has to say about using MDC in such an environment:

A copy of the mapped diagnostic context can not always be inherited by worker threads from the initiating thread. This is the case when java.util.concurrent.Executors is used for thread management. For instance, newCachedThreadPool method creates a ThreadPoolExecutor and like other thread pooling code, it has intricate thread creation logic.

In such cases, it is recommended that MDC.getCopyOfContextMap() is invoked on the original (master) thread before submitting a task to the executor. When the task runs, as its first action, it should invoke MDC.setContextMapValues() to associate the stored copy of the original MDC values with the new Executor managed thread.

This would be fine, but it is a very easy to forget adding those calls, and there is no easy way to recognize the problem until it is too late. The only sign with Log4j is that you get missing MDC info in the logs, and with Logback you get stale MDC info (since the thread in the tread pool inherits its MDC from the first task that was ran on it). Both are serious problems in a production system.

I don't see our situation special in any way, yet I could not find much about this problem on the web. Apparently, this is not something that many people bump up against, so there must be a way to avoid it. What are we doing wrong here?

Answer 1

Yes, this is a common problem I've run into as well. There are a few workarounds (like manually setting it, as described), but ideally you want a solution that

• Sets the MDC consistently;
• Avoids tacit bugs where the MDC is incorrect but you don't know it; and
• Minimizes changes to how you use thread pools (e.g. subclassing Callable with MyCallable everywhere, or similar ugliness).

Here's a solution that I use that meets these three needs. Code should be self-explanatory.

(As a side note, this executor can be created and fed to Guava's MoreExecutors.listeningDecorator(), if you use Guava's ListanableFuture.)

import org.slf4j.MDC;

import java.util.Map;
import java.util.concurrent.*;

/**
 * A SLF4J MDC-compatible {@link ThreadPoolExecutor}.
 * <p/>
 * In general, MDC is used to store diagnostic information (e.g. a user's session id) in per-thread variables, to facilitate
 * logging. However, although MDC data is passed to thread children, this doesn't work when threads are reused in a
 * thread pool. This is a drop-in replacement for {@link ThreadPoolExecutor} sets MDC data before each task appropriately.
 * <p/>
 * Created by jlevy.
 * Date: 6/14/13
 */
public class MdcThreadPoolExecutor extends ThreadPoolExecutor {

    final private boolean useFixedContext;
    final private Map<String, Object> fixedContext;

    /**
     * Pool where task threads take MDC from the submitting thread.
     */
    public static MdcThreadPoolExecutor newWithInheritedMdc(int corePoolSize, int maximumPoolSize, long keepAliveTime,
                                                            TimeUnit unit, BlockingQueue<Runnable> workQueue) {
        return new MdcThreadPoolExecutor(null, corePoolSize, maximumPoolSize, keepAliveTime, unit, workQueue);
    }

    /**
     * Pool where task threads take fixed MDC from the thread that creates the pool.
     */
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    public static MdcThreadPoolExecutor newWithCurrentMdc(int corePoolSize, int maximumPoolSize, long keepAliveTime,
                                                          TimeUnit unit, BlockingQueue<Runnable> workQueue) {
        return new MdcThreadPoolExecutor(MDC.getCopyOfContextMap(), corePoolSize, maximumPoolSize, keepAliveTime, unit,
                workQueue);
    }

    /**
     * Pool where task threads always have a specified, fixed MDC.
     */
    public static MdcThreadPoolExecutor newWithFixedMdc(Map<String, Object> fixedContext, int corePoolSize,
                                                        int maximumPoolSize, long keepAliveTime, TimeUnit unit,
                                                        BlockingQueue<Runnable> workQueue) {
        return new MdcThreadPoolExecutor(fixedContext, corePoolSize, maximumPoolSize, keepAliveTime, unit, workQueue);
    }

    private MdcThreadPoolExecutor(Map<String, Object> fixedContext, int corePoolSize, int maximumPoolSize,
                                  long keepAliveTime, TimeUnit unit, BlockingQueue<Runnable> workQueue) {
        super(corePoolSize, maximumPoolSize, keepAliveTime, unit, workQueue);
        this.fixedContext = fixedContext;
        useFixedContext = (fixedContext != null);
    }

    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    private Map<String, Object> getContextForTask() {
        return useFixedContext ? fixedContext : MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
    }

    /**
     * All executions will have MDC injected. {@code ThreadPoolExecutor}'s submission methods ({@code submit()} etc.)
     * all delegate to this.
     */
    @Override
    public void execute(Runnable command) {
        super.execute(wrap(command, getContextForTask()));
    }

    public static Runnable wrap(final Runnable runnable, final Map<String, Object> context) {
        return new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                Map previous = MDC.getCopyOfContextMap();
                if (context == null) {
                    MDC.clear();
                } else {
                    MDC.setContextMap(context);
                }
                try {
                    runnable.run();
                } finally {
                    if (previous == null) {
                        MDC.clear();
                    } else {
                        MDC.setContextMap(previous);
                    }
                }
            }
        };
    }
}