Some targets support installing. Current the following targets support installing

• Database target
• EventLogger target
• PerformanceCounter target

Install all targets used in the config:

LogManager.Configuration.Install(new InstallationContext());

Uninstall all targets used in the config:

LogManager.Configuration.Uninstall(new InstallationContext());

<target xsi:type="Database" name="db"
        connectionStringName="LoggingDatabase">
    <install-command>
        <text>
            <!--
            NOTE: call LogManager.Configuration.Install(new InstallationContext()); 
                  to execute this query.
            -->
            CREATE TABLE ${var:logTableName} (
            Id bigint primary key not null identity(1,1),
            Logged datetime2,
            Level nvarchar(10),
            LogMessage nvarchar(max),
            MessageUid uniqueidentifier,
            MessagePartUid uniqueidentifier,
            MessagePartDataUid uniqueidentifier,
            )
        </text>
        <ignoreFailures>false</ignoreFailures>
    </install-command>

You can enable the installation log by overriding the default output stream in your InstallationContext. For example, to have the installation log printed out to console, you can use:

LogManager.Configuration.Install(new InstallationContext(Console.Out));

You can also redirect the installation log to a string in memory:

var stringWriter = new StringWriter();
LogManager.Configuration.Install(new InstallationContext(stringWriter));
var installationLog = stringWriter.ToString();   // retrieve the installation output

Note that the log output can also be accessed via InstallationContext.LogOutput:

// This is equivalent to the previous example
var installationContext = new InstallationContext(new StringWriter())
LogManager.Configuration.Install(installationContext);
var installationLog = installationContext.LogOutput.ToString();

Except for application critical exceptions (OutOfMemoryException. StackOverflowException and ThreadAbortException), LogManager.Configuration.Install() will not rethrow any other exception, even when NLog is set up to throw exceptions.