Maven ear Plugin

External

• http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-ear-plugin/

Internal

• Maven

Overview

Each Maven module creates just one artifact, and as EARs are aggregations of multiple artifacts, a project that produces an EAR has at least two modules: the module that produces the EAR and the module that produces the actual content (WAR, JAR, etc.).

Playground Example

The following example shows how to build an EAR that contains a library JAR and a WAR. It is a three-module Maven project.

The interesting pom.xml that builds the EAR is found here:

https://github.com/NovaOrdis/playground/blob/master/jee/ear/war-and-lib/ear/pom.xml

Notes

• The WAR dependency must be explicitly declared of type "war", otherwise the dependency management will attempt to find a JAR and fail.
• The EAR plugin automatically generates an application.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE application PUBLIC
        "-//Sun Microsystems, Inc.//DTD J2EE Application 1.3//EN"
        "http://java.sun.com/dtd/application_1_3.dtd">
<application>
  <display-name>ear-example</display-name>
  <module>
    <web>
      <web-uri>ear-embedded-web-application-1.war</web-uri>
      <context-root>/test</context-root>
    </web>
  </module>
</application>

• If <jboss> is specified in the plugin's configuration, Maven will also generate a JBoss-specific deployment descriptor. Versions seem to be supported by default up to 5.

!!!Working EAR Module POM example

{{{ <project>

   <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

   <name>TimeSnap Enterprise Archive Module</name>

   <parent>
       <groupId>org.novaordis.timesnap</groupId>
       <artifactId>root</artifactId>
       <version>r27</version>
   </parent>

   <groupId>org.novaordis.timesnap</groupId>
   <artifactId>timesnap</artifactId>
   <packaging>ear</packaging>

   <build>
       <plugins>
           <plugin>
               <artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
               <configuration>
                   <jboss>
                       <version>4</version>
                   </jboss>
                   <modules>
                       <sarModule>
                           <groupId>org.novaordis.timesnap</groupId>
                           <artifactId>timesnap-service</artifactId>
                       </sarModule>
                       <webModule>
                           <groupId>org.novaordis.timesnap</groupId>
                           <artifactId>timesnap-webapp</artifactId>
                           <context-root>/timesnap</context-root>
                       </webModule>

                       <jarModule>
                           <groupId>junit</groupId>
                           <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
                           <excluded>true</excluded>
                       </jarModule>
                       <jarModule>
                           <groupId>log4j</groupId>
                           <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
                           <excluded>true</excluded>
                       </jarModule>
                   </modules>
               </configuration>
           </plugin>
       </plugins>
   </build>

   <dependencies>

       <dependency>
           <groupId>org.novaordis.timesnap</groupId>
           <artifactId>timesnap-service</artifactId>
           <version>${project.version}</version>
           <type>sar</type>
       </dependency>

       <dependency>
           <groupId>org.novaordis.timesnap</groupId>
           <artifactId>timesnap-webapp</artifactId>
           <version>${project.version}</version>
           <type>war</type>
       </dependency>

   </dependencies>

</project>

}}}

!!!Including a Third-Party Application Module

{{{

<build>
   <plugins>
     <plugin>
       <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
       <artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
       <configuration>
          [...]
          <modules>
            <jarModule>
              <groupId>artifactGroupId</groupId>
              <artifactId>artifactId</artifactId>
              <includeInApplicationXml>true</includeInApplicationXml>
            </jarModule>
         </modules>
       </configuration>
     </plugin>
   </plugins>
 </build>

}}}