Plugin Documentation

Goals available for this plugin:

Goal Description
release:branch Branch a project in SCM, using the same steps as the release:prepare goal, creating a branch instead of a tag. For more info see http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/examples/branch.html.
release:clean Clean up after a release preparation. This is done automatically after a successful release:perform, so is best served for cleaning up a failed or abandoned release, or a dry run. Note that only the working copy is cleaned up, no previous steps are rolled back. For more info see http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/examples/clean-release.html.
release:help Display help information on maven-release-plugin.
Call 
  mvn release:help -Ddetail=true -Dgoal=<goal-name>
to display parameter details.
release:perform Perform a release from SCM, either from a specified tag, or the tag representing the previous release in the working copy created by release:prepare. For more info see http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/examples/perform-release.html.
release:prepare Prepare for a release in SCM. Steps through several phases to ensure the POM is ready to be released and then prepares SCM to eventually contain a tagged version of the release and a record in the local copy of the parameters used. This can be followed by a call to release:perform. For more info see http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/examples/prepare-release.html.
release:prepare-with-pom Prepare for a release in SCM, fully resolving dependencies for the purpose of producing a "release POM".
release:rollback Rollback changes made by a previous release. This requires that the previous release descriptor release.properties is still available in the local working copy. For more info see http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/examples/rollback-release.html.
release:stage Perform a release from SCM to a staging repository.
release:update-versions Update the POM versions for a project. This performs the normal version updates of the release:prepare goal without making other modifications to the SCM such as tagging. For more info see http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-release-plugin/examples/update-versions.html.

System Requirements

The following specifies the minimum requirements to run this Maven plugin:

Maven 2.0.9
JDK 1.5
Memory No minimum requirement.
Disk Space No minimum requirement.

Usage

You should specify the version in your project's plugin configuration:

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    <!-- To define the plugin version in your parent POM -->
    <pluginManagement>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
          <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>2.1</version>
        </plugin>
        ...
      </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
    <!-- To use the plugin goals in your POM or parent POM -->
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-release-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.1</version>
      </plugin>
      ...
    </plugins>
  </build>
  ...
</project>

For more information, see "Guide to Configuring Plug-ins"