1. The log4j.properties file needs to be in the top level package. e.g. inside the axis/WEB-INF/classes within your web application. 2 & 3. Usually I have created a logging folder that is writable by my tomcat user process, such as /var/log/tomcat , and then set my log4j.conf :
log4j.appender.rollingFile.File=/var/log/tomcat/mylog.log
That is, stuffing the log file out of the webapp ...