Maven Bnd Repository Plugin

The Maven Bnd Repository plugin provides a full interface to the Maven local repository in ~/.m2/repository and remote repositories like Nexus or Artifactory. And it provides of course full access to Maven Central. It implements the standard bnd Repository Plugin and can provide an OSGi Repository for resolving.

Maven Central

To access Maven Central use the following configuration:

-plugin.central = \
	aQute.bnd.repository.maven.provider.MavenBndRepository; \
		releaseUrl=https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/; \
		index=${.}/central.maven; \
		name="Central"

You can add Group:Artifact:Version coordinates in the central.maven file. The file can contain comments, empty lines, and can use macros per line. That is, you cannot create a macro with a load of GAV’s.

Use of .m2 Local Repository

To use your local Maven repository (~/.m2/repository) you can define the following plugin:

-plugin.local = \
	aQute.bnd.repository.maven.provider.MavenBndRepository; \
		index=${.}/local.maven; \
		name="Local"

Artifactory or Nexus Repository

To use a remote release repository based on Nexus or Artifactory you can define the following plugin:

-plugin.release = \
	aQute.bnd.repository.maven.provider.MavenBndRepository; \
		releaseUrl=http://localhost:8081/nexus/content/repositories/releases/    ; \
		snapshotUrl=http://localhost:8081/nexus/content/repositories/snapshots/   ; \
		index=${.}/release.maven; \
		name="Release"

If you use a remote repository then you must configure the credentials. This is described in -connection-settings. Placing the following XML in ~/.bnd/settings.xml will provide you with the default Nexus credentials:

<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
	xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
                          http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
	<servers>
		<server>
			<id>http://localhost:8081</id>
			<username>admin</username>
			<password>admin123</password>
		</server>
	</servers>
</settings>

Notice that the id must match the scheme, the host, and the port if not the default port for the scheme.

Plugin Configuration

The class name of the plugin is aQute.bnd.repository.maven.provider.MavenBndRepository. It can take the following configuration properties:

If no releaseUrl nor a snapshotUrl are specified then the repository is local only. For finding archives, both URLs are used, first releaseUrl.

The index file specifies a view on the remote repository, it scopes it. Since we use the bnd repositories to resolve against, it is impossible to resolve against the world. The index file falls under source control, it is stored in the source control management system. This guarantees that at any time the project is checked out it has the same views on its repository. This is paramount to prevent build breackages due to changes in repositories.

Alternative, the GAV’s can be specified in the file where the repository is defined with the source configuration property. This is a string separated by either whitespace, commas, semicolons, or any combination thereof.

Both the index file and the source configuration can be replaced by macros. The only difference is that the source can use macros for more than one GAV while the indexFile is processed per line and that line must deliver at most single GAV.

Coordinates & Terminology

The index file contains a list of coordinates. A coordinate specifies an archive in a Maven revison. An archive is a ZIP, POM, JAR, or any other type of file. In Maven, these files are addressed within a revision with an extension and a classifier. The extension indicates the type of the file and the classifier is a modifier that makes the name unique in the project. A revision is the combination of a program and a version, where the program is the combination of groupId and artifactId.

For an archive, the extension has a default of jar and the classifier is by default not set (either null or empty). The syntax for the coordinates is therefore:

group ':' artifact ( ':' extension ( ':' classifier )? )? ':' version ( '-SNAPSHOT` )?

Valid coordinates are:

group:artifact:1.0-SNAPSHOT
commons-cli:commons-cli:jar:sources:1.3.1
commons-lang:commons-lang:2.6
commons-logging:commons-logging:1.2
org.osgi:osgi.core:6.0.0
org.osgi:osgi.annotation:6.0.1

The file can contain comments (start the line with #), empty lines and also macros. The domain of the macros is the Workspace. A comment may also be placed after the GAV.

# This is a comment
${osgi}:${osgi}.service.log:1.4.0

Local Repository

Maven supports a local repository in ~/.m2/repository. All repositories will install through a local repository. The default is the same repository as Maven but this can be overridden with the local configuration property.

It is possible to define a Maven Bnd Repository without a releaseUrl or snapshotUrl. In that case only access to the local repository is provided. Trying to release remotely will be an error for such a repository.

The -buildrepo instruction can be pointed to such a local repository; it will then store a JAR in the local repository after every build. This can be useful if there are Maven projects that consume the output of a bnd workspace.

Releasing

In bnd, releasing is done by moving the JARs into a special release repository after they’ve been approved. That is, the location of a JAR defines if it is released, there is no need to reflect the release status in the version.

In Maven, the release status is modeled in the version. To support the staging model, versions can end in -SNAPSHOT. Snapshots are treated very differently in the release process. The most important difference is that snapshot versions can overwrite previous versions.

In the release cycle, a JAR is put to release repository. The project of the released JAR is provided as context, this means it can inherit from the project and workspace. This plugin will read the -maven-release instruction from the context. This can result in generating source and javadoc jars. By default, a local only release only installs the actual binary.

To properly release the revision we need to know Maven specific information that is normally specified in the Maven pom. The bnd build can construct a pom using the -pom instruction. This instruction creates a pom in the JAR at META-INF/group/artifact/pom.xml. This plugin requires such a pom to be present. If it is not present, the -maven-release instruction must provide a PATH to an alternative pom. If no pom can be found then this is aborts the release.

In general, the plugin will first install the JARs and its constituents into the local revision directory, using the Maven naming rules. If this is successful, it uploads the files to the remote repository using the remote naming rules. It will then update the maven-metadata to reflect the new release.

In Maven, revisions that end in -SNAPSHOT are treated special in many places. In bnd, we support this model with the -snapshot and -pom instructions. If a snapshotUrl is specified, then versions that end in SNAPSHOT are released to that URL.

Authentication

The Maven Bnd Repository uses the bnd Http Client. See the -connection-settings instruction for how to set the proxy and authentication information.

IDEs

The repository view in the IDE will show detailed information when you hover the mouse over the the repository entry, the program entry, or the revision entry.

You can add new entries by:

• Editing the index file. The repository will be updated immediately
• Using the menus on the revision or program entries to delete entries
• Dropping a URL to a POM. This pom will be parsed and then its coordinates are added. POMs from search.maven.org are also supported.
• Using the menus to add all runtime or compile time dependencies of another entry.