Maven EAR project for multiple application servers

Question

I have a EAR project that I want automatize the building process using maven exclusively.

The EAR project has

• Standard jar modules
• Web modules
• EJB modules
• RAR modules

To be able to execute the product in Jboss 4.2.3 and WebSphere 7 the EJB and RAR descriptors must be configured in different way. Also we have one jar library for each app server.

What I want is to be able to build one EAR for each apps server using the same projects, and for that I need

1. Include a JAR module depending of the app server
2. Use the customized descriptor in the EJB/RAR modules depending of the app server
3. Package all this customized modules in an EAR

Can this be done using the same set of project in maven?

Answer 1

Sure. Have a look at profiles in maven. They allow you to adjust various things (from the link) like:

• <repositories>
• <pluginRepositories>
• <dependencies>
• <plugins>
• <properties> (not actually available in the main POM, but used behind the scenes)
• <modules>
• <reporting>
• <dependencyManagement>
• <distributionManagement>
• a subset of the element, which consists of:
  • <defaultGoal>
  • <resources>
  • <testResources>
  • <finalName>

Answer 2

The best is to create separate modules like ear-websphere, or ear-jboss and make an appropriate pom file which contains the needed configuration for maven-ear-plugin.