<profiles>  
  <profile>
    <id>platform-unix</id>
    <activation>
      <os>
        <family>unix</family>
        <name>!mac os x</name>
        <build>
          <plugins>
            <plugin>
              <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
              <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
              <version>1.7</version>
              <executions>
                <execution>
                  <id>clean-message</id>
                  <phase>clean</phase>
                  <goals>
                    <goal>run</goal>
                  </goals>
                  <configuration>
                    <target>
                      <echo message="I will only run on Linux"/>
                    </target>
                  </configuration>
                </execution>
              </executions>
            </plugin>
          </plugins>
        </build>
      </os>
    </activation>
  </profile>
</profiles>

Tip #2: Use maven-dependency-plugin if you need to download dependencies to custom locations in your project

In the below example, every dependency with a scope set of runtime will be copied to lib directory of the project except for the artifacts with the ID of coreTest and libTest.
<plugin>  
  <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.5.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>copy-dependencies</id>
      <phase>prepare-package</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <includeScope>runtime</includeScope>
        <outputDirectory>${project.basedir}/lib</outputDirectory>
        <excludeArtifactIds>coreTest,libTest</excludeArtifactIds>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

Tip #3: You don’t need to have Maven dependencies specified to use maven-dependency-plugin to pull to custom locations

In the below example, myProject.jar and agent-solaris.sh is copied to libdirectory of the project.
<plugin>  
  <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.5.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>copy-special-libraries</id>
      <phase>generate-resources</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>copy</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <artifactItems>
          <artifactItem>
            <groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
            <artifactId>myProject</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.0</version>
            <type>jar</type>
            <destFileName>myProject.jar</destFileName>
          </artifactItem>
          <artifactItem>
            <groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
            <artifactId>agent</artifactId>
            <version>1.0.0</version>
            <type>bin</type>
            <classifier>solaris-x86_64</classifier>
            <destFileName>agent-solaris.sh</destFileName>
          </artifactItem>
        </artifactItems>
        <outputDirectory>${project.basedir}/lib</outputDirectory>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
<plugin>

Tip #4: You can download all artifacts matching a given groupId and artifactId list and even include their pom.xml

In this example, it downloads the pom.xml and jar for my-magic-plugin to lib/pom but strips the version from the jar.
<plugin>  
  <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.5.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>copy-special-libraries</id>
      <phase>prepare-package</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>copy-dependencies</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
      <configuration>
        <includeGroupIds>com.mycompany.myapp</includeGroupIds>
        <includeArtifactIds>my-magic-plugin</includeArtifactIds>
        <copyPom>true</copyPom>
        <includeScope>runtime</includeScope>
        <stripVersion>true</stripVersion>
        <outputDirectory>${project.basedir}/pom</outputDirectory>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugins>

Tip #5: You can download specific files out of a jar and copy them to a location

In this example, we download the META-INF/MANIFEST.MF out of the my-core-appartifact and put it in target/tmp directory
<plugin>  
  <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.5.1</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
    <execution>
      <id>unpack-version</id>
      <phase>compile</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>unpack</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <artifactItems>
          <artifactItem>
            <groupId>com.myexample</groupId>
            <artifactId>my-core-app</artifactId>
            <version>${project.version}</version>
            <includes>META-INF/MANIFEST.MF</includes>
            <outputDirectory>
              ${project.build.directory/tmp
            </outputDirectory>
          </artifactItem>
        </artifactItems>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugins>

Tip #6: If you prefer Apache Ant over Apache Maven you can still use it from within Maven

In this example, we call Apache Ant from within Maven to do various things:
  • Delete lib/thirdparty directory and lib/generated.jar files as part of a mvn clean
  • Copy src/main/my-app and script.sh to the location defined by ${my.staging}before a Maven compilation
  • Create a zip artifact which contains various files and folders at target/<artifactId>-<version>.zip
  • Copy the staged MANIFEST.MF from the previous example to target/version.txt
<plugin>  
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.7</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>clean-project</id>
      <phase>clean</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>run</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <target>
          <delete dir="${project.basedir}/lib/thirdparty" />
          <delete file="${project.basedir}/lib/generated.jar" />
        </target>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
    <execution>
      <id>create-staging-area</id>
      <phase>process-resources</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>run</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <target>
          <copy todir="${my.staging}">
            <fileset dir="${basedir}/src/main/my-app" />
          </copy>
          <copy file="${basedir}/scipt.sh" todir="${my.staging}" />
        </target>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
    <execution>
      <phase>package</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>run</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <target>
          <mkdir dir="${project.build.directory}" />
          <zip destfile="${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.zip">
            <fileset dir="${project.basedir}">
              <include name="lib/**" />
              <include name="my-app.cmd" />
              <include name="my-app" />
            </fileset>
            <fileset dir="${project.build.directory}">
              <include name="documentation/**" />
              <include name="xsd/**" />
              <include name="version.txt" />
            </fileset>
          </zip>
        </target>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
    <execution>
      <id>copy-versionnumber</id>
      <phase>prepare-package</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>run</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <target>
          <copy tofile="${project.build.directory}/version.txt">
            <fileset file="${project.build.directory}/tmp/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF" />
          </copy>
        </target>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

Tip #7: You can attach any file to be included as an artifact in the built project

For the zip we created in the previous example, attach it to the generated Artifact.
<plugin>  
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  <artifactId>build-helper-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.2</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <phase>package</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>attach-artifact</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <artifacts>
          <artifact>
           <file>       
           ${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.zip
           </file>
           <type>zip</type>
          </artifact>
        </artifacts>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

Tip #8: If you want to simplify the install of your product, consider building for a packaging tool like RPM, NPM, Docker etc

In the example, below we are building an RPM for Red Hat Linux / Fedora / CentOS to allow for our CLI application to be easily installed with yum install <app name>.rpm or yum install <app name> if we publish to a Yum repository.
<plugin>  
  <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
  <artifactId>rpm-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.1-alpha-4</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>attach-rpm</id>
      <goals>
        <goal>attached-rpm</goal>
      </goals>
    </execution>
  </executions>
  <configuration>
    <license>All rights reserved</license>
    <group>My Company</group>
    <needarch>x86_64</needarch>
    <version>${project.version}</version>
    <name>a-cli-app</name>
    <vendor>My Company</vendor>
    <summary>My CLI appplication turns water into wine.</summary>
    <description>Through an effective propaganda campaign we will make you believe that water = wine all with a single metaphorical push button on your Linux terminal</description>
    <defineStatements>
      <defineStatement>__os_install_post %{nil}</defineStatement>
    </defineStatements>
    <mappings>
      <mapping>
        <directory>${app.home}/lib</directory>
        <filemode>755</filemode>
        <username>cliuser</username>
        <groupname>cligroup</groupname>
        <sources>
          <source>
            <location>${project.basedir}/lib</location>
          </source>
        </sources>
      </mapping>
      <mapping>
        <directory>${app.home}</directory>
        <filemode>755</filemode>
        <username>cliuser</username>
        <groupname>cligroup</groupname>
        <sources>
          <source>
            <location>${project.basedir}/cli-app</location>
          </source>
        </sources>
      </mapping>
      <mapping>
        <directory>${app.home}</directory>
        <filemode>755</filemode>
        <username>cliuser</username>
        <groupname>cligroup</groupname>
      </mapping>
    </mappings>
  </configuration>
</plugin>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍