This is not a bug, but rather a result of several previous issues. Apache HttpComponents unfortunately still uses Commons Logging (HTTPCLIENT-1664). As you might now, Wagon HTTP Provider is added as a shaded JAR to Maven distribution. Up until WAGON-471 Commons Logging was shaded, but had no effect because it could not log anywhere. Now JCL over SLF4J is used and HttpComponents can log just like every other dependency. Since -X enables debug on all loggers, you see the entire HTTP comm as well. So the issue existed eversince, but simply was not visible. In short-term you can explicitly disable logging on HttpComponents in org.apache.maven.cli.logging.impl.*, in the long-term you'd require every single logging component to register its logger name. Consider that the former option likely takes away the possibility to enable debug logging with HttpComponents to trace errors.

The bug is more about the huge amount af logging produced, which simply makes debug logging useless. We should provide a better logging configuration.

I'd hoped we could define this by default, like

org.slf4j.simpleLogger.log.org.apache.http=error
org.slf4j.simpleLogger.log.org.apache.http.wire=error

but somehow this isn't picked up, don't understand why yet.

You forgot that HttpComponents are shaded into HTTP provider. Use this:

org.slf4j.simpleLogger.log.org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient=warn

Shading rule:

<relocation>
  <pattern>org.apache.http</pattern>
  <shadedPattern>org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient</shadedPattern>
</relocation>

I've added a couple of lines to the simplelogger.properties to restore logging behavior. All these properties can be adjusted via commandline: -Dorg.slf4j.simpleLogger.log.org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient=debug will make it log at debug level again.

You completely disabled it now. Why not warn/info at least?

IIUC it has never worked, so this will restore the original behavior. I also expect that the logging by Wagon is good enough if there are issues. I just want to prevent an overload of logging. Logging == IO == slow and in case of analyses we have the option to adjust the levels.

OK, makes sense. Can we document this somewhere for people?

http://maven.apache.org/maven-logging.html

This is indeed sufficient.

Fixed in e0da20a1f801aeda0cd74495834c637c3a207478

SUCCESS: Integrated in Jenkins build maven-3.x #1558 (See https://builds.apache.org/job/maven-3.x/1558/)
MNG-6181 HttpClient produces a lot of noise at debug loglevel (rfscholte: http://git-wip-us.apache.org/repos/asf/?p=maven.git&a=commit&h=e0da20a1f801aeda0cd74495834c637c3a207478)

• (edit) apache-maven/src/conf/logging/simplelogger.properties