Configuring Maven to automate tasks for Liberty

Apache Maven is a software project management tool based on the concept of a project object model (POM). You can use the Liberty Maven plug-in to manage your runtime and applications.

Before you begin

You can use the open source Liberty Maven plug-in to create, start, stop, and package the Liberty runtime, and to test your applications on Liberty. Each task is represented by a specific goal in Maven. This plug-in, which is available under the io.openliberty.tools group ID, supports both WebSphere Liberty and Open Liberty.

Documentation on using Maven to automate Liberty tasks and the available Maven goals is located and updated in the Liberty Maven Plug-in documentation in GitHub.

About this task

You can configure the Liberty Maven plug-in with Liberty runtime installation information. The installation information can be specified as Maven coordinates, as an existing installation directory, or as a compressed archive. If no runtime installation is configured, the default artifact is used, which includes the latest version of the full Open Liberty runtime kernel.

The following examples specify the 3.7.1 version of the Liberty Maven plug-in. For more information about the latest available version of the plug-in, see the Liberty Maven Plug-in documentation in GitHub.

Procedure

  • Configure a Liberty installation by using Maven coordinates.
    Use the runtimeArtifact parameter to specify the coordinates (group name, artifact ID, and version) of the Maven artifact that contains Liberty runtime files, as shown in the following example. This example specifies the coordinates for the WebSphere Liberty runtime with all Jakarta EE 9 features.
    
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>io.openliberty.tools</groupId>
            <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId> 
            <version>3.7.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <runtimeArtifact> 
                    <groupId>com.ibm.websphere.appserver.runtime</groupId> 
                    <artifactId>wlp-jakartaee9</artifactId>
                    <version>22.0.0.10</version>
                    <type>zip</type>
                </runtimeArtifact>         
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        ...

    For a list of the available coordinates for WebSphere Liberty and Open Liberty, see Using a Maven artifact.

  • Configure an installation by using an existing Liberty installation directory.
    Use the installDirectory parameter to specify the directory of an existing Liberty runtime installation, as shown in the following example.
    
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>io.openliberty.tools</groupId>
            <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId> 
            <version>3.7.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <installDirectory>/opt/ibm/wlp</installDirectory>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        ...
  • Configure an installation by using a compressed Liberty archive.
    Use the runtimeArchive parameter to specify a compressed archive that contains Libertyruntime files, as shown in the following example.
    
        ...
        <plugin>
            <groupId>io.openliberty.tools</groupId>
            <artifactId>liberty-maven-plugin</artifactId> 
            <version>3.7.1</version>
            <configuration>
                <runtimeArchive>/opt/ibm/wlp.zip</runtimeArchive>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        ...