Overview

This document describes the supplied goals that are available when using the J2EE Plug-in with Maven.

Please refer to the Integration document for more information on how to integrate these goals into your project.

The build file utilizes various properties for default and user-configurable settings. All J2EE Plug-in properties are described in the Properties document. The rest of this document assumes your project follows the standard Directory Layout; however, it is possible to override many of these defaults.

J2EE Goals

GoalDescription
j2ee:validate-war Validate a WAR file.
j2ee:ejb Creates an EJBjar file.
j2ee:ear Creates an EAR file.

j2ee:validate-war

The j2ee:validate-war target validates the newly produced war file.

The validator checks the folowing:

  1. The war file exists
  2. It is readable
  3. The war file has a web.xml (it's only a warning if it doesn't exist)
  4. Servlets defined by a <servlet> tag are loadable from the war file and not the classpath
  5. JSPs defined by a <servlet> tag exist in the war
  6. Taglibs defined by a <taglib> have a <taglib-location> that exists in the war
  7. Error pages specified by a <location> nested within an <error-page> element must exist in the war file
  8. Login and error pages specified in the <form-login-config > element must exist in the war file

j2ee:ejb

The j2ee:ejb target generates the ejb jar file for the project. Optionally it can also create jars containing the local and remote interfaces. The files are produced in the ${maven.build.dir}/ejb directory and have a name based on the ${maven.j2ee.ejb.name} property.

The files generated are:

  • ${maven.j2ee.ejb.name}.jar
  • ${maven.j2ee.ejb.name}-remote.jar (optional)
  • ${maven.j2ee.ejb.name}-local.jar (optional)

Maven also includes the license file, LICENSE.txt, if it exists, in the META-INF directory.

The contents of the ejb file include:

ItemDescription
ejb-jar.xml A J2EE enterprise bean deployment descriptor, which is placed in the root of the resulting ear file. The ${maven.j2ee.ejb.conf.dir} and associated includes and excludes properties defines the location of this file.
Classes The files in the ${maven.build.dest} directory to be included is specified using the ${maven.j2ee.ejb.includes} and ${maven.j2ee.ejb.excludes} properties.
Meta-Inf Files to be included the META-INF directory of the ejb jar file may be specified using the ${maven.j2ee.ejb.conf.dir}, ${maven.j2ee.ejb.conf.includes} and ${maven.j2ee.ejb.conf.excludes} properties.

j2ee:ear

The j2ee:ear target generates an ear file for the project. The ear file is produced in the ${maven.build.dir} directory and has a name defined by the ${maven.j2ee.ear.name} property.

Maven also includes the license file, LICENSE.txt, if it exists, under the directory META-INF.

The contents of the ear file include:

ItemDescription
application.xml A J2EE enterprise application deployment descriptor, which is placed in the META-INF of the resulting ear file. The ${maven.j2ee.ear.appxml} property defines the location of this file. It defaults to src/application.xml
Other Content Any dependencies specified in your project.xml may be included by adding the ear.bundle.jar property to the properties, e.g. 
<dependency>
  <id>CustomerEjb</id>
  <version>2.4</version>
  <properties>
    <ear.bundle.jar>true</ear.bundle.jar>
  </properties>
</dependency>