Adding custom appender to Bukkit on runtime

Hi all,

I wanted to add a custom appender to Bukkit's internal Log4J2 on runtime to capture the LogEvents. However, when I include the latest Log4J2 (2.8) and shaded it into my plugin's JAR, I received the following error.

Code:

ERROR StatusLogger Log4j2 could not find a logging implementation. Please add log4j-core to the classpath. Using SimpleLogger to log to the console...

This is the configuration in the POM I've used to shade the JAR.

Code:

<build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0.0</version>
        <executions>
         <execution>
           <phase>package</phase>
           <goals>
             <goal>shade</goal>
           </goals>
           <configuration>
             <relocations>
               <relocation>
                 <pattern>org.apache.logging</pattern>
                 <shadedPattern>com.gmail.surreal.cle.plugins.testlogging.library.org.apache.logging</shadedPattern>
               </relocation>
               <relocation>
                 <pattern>org.apache.commons</pattern>
                 <shadedPattern>com.gmail.surreal.cle.plugins.testlogging.library.org.apache.commons</shadedPattern>
               </relocation>
             </relocations>
           </configuration>
         </execution>
        </executions>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>

The code I've tried to use is as shown here.

Code:

        PatternLayout layout = PatternLayout.createDefaultLayout();
        Appender appender = new AbstractAppender("CustomAppender", null, layout)
        {
            @Override
            public void append(LogEvent logEvent)
            {
                loggerMessages.add(logEvent);
            }
        };
        appender.start();
        LoggerContext context = (LoggerContext) LogManager.getContext(false);
        Configuration config = context.getConfiguration();
        config.addAppender(appender);

This has also caused additional errors to be logged in the console.

Code:

[16:58:10 ERROR]: Error occurred while enabling TestLogging v1.0 (Is it up to date?)
java.lang.ClassCastException: com.gmail.surreal.cle.plugins.testlogging.library.org.apache.logging.log4j.simple.SimpleLoggerContext cannot be cast to com.gmail.surreal.cle.plugins.testlogging.library.org.apache.logging.log4j.core.LoggerContext
        at com.gmail.surreal.cle.plugins.testlogging.MDMain.onEnable(MDMain.java:137) ~[?:?]
        at org.bukkit.plugin.java.JavaPlugin.setEnabled(JavaPlugin.java:292) ~[spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at org.bukkit.plugin.java.JavaPluginLoader.enablePlugin(JavaPluginLoader.java:340) [spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at org.bukkit.plugin.SimplePluginManager.enablePlugin(SimplePluginManager.java:405) [spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at org.bukkit.craftbukkit.v1_10_R1.CraftServer.loadPlugin(CraftServer.java:362) [spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at org.bukkit.craftbukkit.v1_10_R1.CraftServer.enablePlugins(CraftServer.java:322) [spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at net.minecraft.server.v1_10_R1.DedicatedServer.init(DedicatedServer.java:204) [spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at net.minecraft.server.v1_10_R1.MinecraftServer.run(MinecraftServer.java:535) [spigot-1.10.2.jar:git-Spigot-1e4dd71-4507d99]
        at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source) [?:1.8.0_121]

Any help to add custom appenders would be greatly appreciated.