Maven: How to include jars, which are not available in reps into a J2EE project?

Question

Hello,

in my J2EE project I've a couple of dependencies, which are not available in any Maven repository, because they're proprietary libraries. These libraries need to be available at runtime, so that have to be copied to target/.../WEB-INF/lib ...

Right now, I'm listing them as system dependency in my POM, but with this method the problem is, that aren't being copied to the target build during compilation. Also this method is not very elegant.

So which is the best way to integrate them in Maven?

Note: I don't want to create my own Maven repository.

Answer 1

you can install them in a private, local repository (e.g. .m2/repository under your home directory): more details here

Answer 2

You need to set up a local repository that will host such libraries. There are a number of projects that do exactly that. For example Artifactory.

Answer 3

If I am understanding well, if what you want to do is to export dependencies during the compilation phase so there will be no need to retrieve manually each needed libraries, you can use the mojo copy-dependencies.

Hope it can be useful in your case (examples)

Answer 4

As you've said you don't want to set up your own repository, perhaps this will help.

You can use the install-file goal of the maven-install-plugin to install a file to the local repository. If you create a script with a Maven invocation for each file and keep it alongside the jars, you (and anyone else with access) can easily install the jars (and associated pom files) to their local repository.

For example:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=/usr/jars/foo.jar -DpomFile=/usr/jars/foo.pom
mvn install:install-file -Dfile=/usr/jars/bar.jar -DpomFile=/usr/jars/bar.pom

You can then reference the dependencies as normal in your project.

However your best bet is still to set up an internal remote repository and I'd recommend using Nexus myself. It can run on your development box if needed, and the overhead is minimal.

Answer 5

Continue to use them as a system dependency and copy them over to target/.../WEB-INF/lib ... using the Maven dependency plugin:

http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-dependency-plugin/examples/copying-artifacts.html