Configuring Maven Builds

Maven is a build automation tool initially developed for Java projects. It has become the default build tool for Oracle Middleware.

Maven addresses two aspects of the build process; first, it describes how to build the software, and second, it describes any build time dependencies.

The Project Object Model or POM is an XML File that provides all the configuration information required by Maven for the build, such as the software project being built, its dependencies on other external modules and components, the build order, directories, and required plug-ins.

For each artifact that we wish to build, we need to create a corresponding POM file. Once created, we need to commit that to our Version Control System so that we can perform automated builds from our CI Server.

Populating Binary Repository with Maven plugin

The Oracle Maven Synchronization plugin supports populating local and remote repositories with artifacts from a given Oracle Middleware installation. Detailed instructions are available in the Oracle documentation on how to setup your Binary repository.

Sample commands are shown below.

Seeding a local repository

This is useful for a basic local build setup.

Update the values of ORACLE_HOME to suit the target environment.

export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/app/oracle/product/fmw1221

mvn install:install-file \
-Dfile=${ORACLE_HOME}/oracle_common/plugins/maven/com/oracle/maven/oracle-maven-sync/12.2.1/oracle-maven-sync-12.2.1.jar \
-DpomFile=${ORACLE_HOME}/oracle_common/plugins/maven/com/oracle/maven/oracle-maven-sync/12.2.1/oracle-maven-sync-12.2.1.pom

mvn com.oracle.maven:oracle-maven-sync:push \
-DoracleHome=${ORACLE_HOME} -DtestingOnly=false

Seeding a remote repository

This approach is recommended for a Continuous Integration server and/or a team of developers. When a build is run on any server with the same Maven settings.xml the required libraries will be automatically downloaded if they are missing.

Update the values of ORACLE_HOME, and MAVEN_SERVER to suit the target environment. Note: This command could take up to 2 hours to complete, depending on network performance.

export ORACLE_HOME=/opt/app/oracle/product/fmw1221

mvn deploy:deploy-file \
-Dfile=${ORACLE_HOME}/oracle_common/plugins/maven/com/oracle/maven/oracle-maven-sync/12.2.1/oracle-maven-sync-12.2.1.jar \
-DpomFile=${ORACLE_HOME}/oracle_common/plugins/maven/com/oracle/maven/oracle-maven-sync/12.2.1/oracle-maven-sync-12.2.1.pom \
-Durl=http://${MAVEN_SERVER}:8081/artifactory/ext-release-local/ -DrepositoryId=artifactory

mvn com.oracle.maven:oracle-maven-sync:push \
-DoracleHome=${ORACLE_HOME} -DtestingOnly=false -DserverId=artifactory

For the above to work, you should define your Maven Repository connection details in the Maven settings.xml. Below is an example for Artifactory.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.1.0"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.1.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.1.0.xsd">
  <servers>    
    <server>  
      <username>admin</username>  
      <password>password</password>  
      <id>artifactory</id>  
    </server>  
  </servers>
  <profiles>
    <profile>
      <id>oracle-repo</id>              
      <properties>
         <oracleHome>/opt/app/oracle/product/fmw1221</oracleHome>
      </properties>
      <repositories>        
        <repository>
          <id>artifactory</id>
          <name>artifactory</name>
          <url>http://localhost:8081/artifactory/ext-release-local</url>
          <layout>default</layout>
          <snapshots>
             <enabled>false</enabled>
          </snapshots>
          <releases>
            <updatePolicy>never</updatePolicy>
          </releases>
        </repository>
      </repositories>
    </profile>
  </profiles>
  <activeProfiles>
    <activeProfile>oracle-repo</activeProfile>
  </activeProfiles>

</settings>

Defining our Project Object Model

Each automated Maven build should have a Project Object Model (also knows as pom) which is defined in a pom.xml file at the project root directory.

At a minimum a pom.xml must contain a groupId, artifactId and version (also known as a GAV classifier) and a modelVersion to indicate the version of the Maven Project Object Model itself. At the time of writing, 4.0.0 is the latest pom version.

Below is an example of the most minimal pom.xml to create a single jar file

<project>
 <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
 <groupId>com.acme</groupId>
 <artifactId>my-jar-achive</artifactId>
 <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</project>

Given this pom.xml and a source code structure as follows...

hello-world
├── pom.xml
└── src
    └── main
        └── java
            └── com
                └── acme
                    └── hello_world
                        └── Main.java

6 directories, 2 files

...when I navigate to the hello-world project directory from a Terminal and execute mvn package then a Java Archive will be compiled and packaged to target/hello-world-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar

Maven Parents

Maven supports the concept of project inheritance. This can be useful when you want to have a common set of properties and plugins that are reused by multiple projects. This is also the mechanism that Oracle use to enable a given pom.xml to build a certain project type.

Project inheritance is achieved through the concept of a Parent POM which is in-turn referenced by the Project POM. Below is an example pom.xml for building an Oracle Service Bus (OSB) archive for the 12.2.1.0.0 version of Oracle SOA Suite.

<project>

  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <parent>
    <groupId>com.oracle.servicebus</groupId>
    <artifactId>sbar-project-common</artifactId>
    <version>12.1.3-0-0</version>
  </parent>
  <groupId>com.acme</groupId>
  <artifactId>stock-services</artifactId>
  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>sbar</packaging>
</project>

In addition to the automated build, the MyST build plugin will use the parent for Oracle-specific artifacts to determine the deploy-time Artifact Type. This is important as MyST uses different deploy-time strategies depending on the Artifact Type.

The below table contains the details of common Parent POMs provided by Oracle and their corresponding MyST Artifact Type.

JDeveloper Examples

Oracle JDeveloper 12c has native support for Apache Maven.

Building Oracle Service Bus Projects in JDeveloper with Maven

In this section, we provide a detailed walkthrough on how to create a POM file in JDeveloper. In this example, we will show how to create a POM file for an OSB project. A similar approach would also be used for other artifact types.

Within JDeveloper, locate the OSB project that we wish to build with Maven. Right click on the project and click New and then select From Gallery.

Type pom into the Search Bar and then select Empty POM (Maven).

Click OK. JDeveloper will open the Create a Maven POM dialogue. Leave the defaults when prompted to enter the location and click Ok.

If prompted to overwrite an existing file, select Yes.

JDeveloper will then prompt us to enter the following values:

• Group Id: The groupId for your new project. This usually starts with your organization's domain name in reverse format. For example com.acme.
• Artifact Id: The artifactId for your OSB project. This is usually an identifier for this project.
• Version: The version for our OSB project. This is usually 1.0-SNAPSHOT for a new project.
• Packaging - This must be set to sbar
• Parent > Group Id - This must be set to com.oracle.servicebus.
• Parent > Artifact Id - This must be set to sbar-project-common.
• Parent > Version - This must be set to the version of the Oracle Service Bus, for example, 12.1.3-0-0 or 12.2.1-0-0.

Click on the Source tab. The source should look similar to the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.acme</groupId>
    <artifactId>StockServices</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>sbar</packaging>
    <parent>
        <groupId>com.oracle.servicebus</groupId>
        <artifactId>sbar-project-common</artifactId>
        <version>12.2.1-0-0</version>
    </parent>
</project>

Once completed, save the POM.

When creating a POM for a different artifact type, we will need to specify the appropriate packaging and parent groupId, artifactId and version. For further details, refer to the Oracle Documentation.

Test Maven Build

Prior to configuring our CI Server to automatically executing our Maven build, it is good practice to test that we have correctly configured our POM file by executing the Maven build from within JDeveloper.

Right-click on the project and click Run Maven then package.

We should see the Maven build running in the Apache Maven - package tab. Once the build has completed successfully, the output should look similar to the following.

Navigate to the folder .data/maven on the file system under the project home. You should see a file created called sbconfig.sbar.

Once we have created our Project Object Model (pom.xml). We must commit it to our Version Control System so that we can perform automated builds from our CI Server.