From: http://hc.apache.org/httpcomponents-client-ga/logging.html I copy pasted
log4j.rootLogger=INFO, stdout log4j.appender.stdout=org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender log4j.appender.stdout.layout=org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern=%5p [%c] %m%n log4j.logger.org.apache.http=DEBUG log4j.logger.org.apache.http.wire=ERROR Into a file I named log4j.properties that I put into src folder a'ka <default package> Didn't work at all. Then I put this in my class: System.setProperty("log4j.rootLogger", "INFO, stdout"); System.setProperty("log4j.appender.stdout", "org.apache.log4j.ConsoleAppender"); System.setProperty("log4j.appender.stdout.layout", "org.apache.log4j.PatternLayout"); System.setProperty("log4j.appender.stdout.layout.ConversionPattern", "%5p [%c] %m%n"); System.setProperty("log4j.logger.org.apache.http.client", "DEBUG"); System.setProperty("log4j.logger.org.apache.http", "DEBUG"); System.setProperty("log4j.logger.org.apache.http.wire", "DEBUG"); Yet it didn't work at all either. No additional output was produced. How do you make it work? ps: at: http://logging.apache.org/log4j/1.2/manual.html It's not written how to do it (empty paragraph "Example Configurations" and non empty yet ultimately useless Tomcat paragraph).