How to manually install an artifact in Maven 2?

Maven 2 Problem Overview

I've encountered some errors when I tried to install an artifact manually with Maven 2. I wanted to install a jar from a local directory with the command

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=jta-1.0.1B.jar

But Maven gave a build error which reads like:

Invalid task '.01B.jar': you must
specify a valid lifecycle phase, or a
goal in the format plugin:goal or
pluginGroupId:pluginArtifactId:pluginVersion:goal

Is there a mistake with my command?

Maven 2 Solutions

Solution 1 - Maven 2

You need to indicate the groupId, the artifactId and the version for your artifact:

mvn install:install-file \
  -DgroupId=javax.transaction \
  -DartifactId=jta \
  -Dpackaging=jar \
  -Dversion=1.0.1B \
  -Dfile=jta-1.0.1B.jar \
  -DgeneratePom=true

Solution 2 - Maven 2

According to maven's Guide to installing 3rd party JARs, the command is:

mvn install:install-file -Dfile=<path-to-file> -DgroupId=<group-id> \
-DartifactId=<artifact-id> -Dversion=<version> -Dpackaging=<packaging>

You need indeed the packaging option. This answers the original question.

Now, in your context, you are fighting with a jar provided by Sun. You should read the Coping with Sun JARs page too. There, you'll learn how to help maven to provide you better information about Sun jars location and how to add Java.net Maven 2 repository which contains jta-1.0.1B.jar. Add this in your ~~settings.xml (not portable) or~~ pom.xml (portable):

  <repositories>
    <repository>
      <id>maven2-repository.dev.java.net</id>
      <name>Java.net Repository for Maven</name>
      <url>http://download.java.net/maven/2/</url>
      <layout>default</layout>
    </repository>
  </repositories>

Solution 3 - Maven 2

I had to add packaging, so:

mvn install:install-file \
  -DgroupId=javax.transaction \
  -DartifactId=jta \
  -Dversion=1.0.1B \
  -Dfile=jta-1.0.1B.jar \
  -DgeneratePom=true \
  -Dpackaging=jar

Solution 4 - Maven 2

Answer is to escape the dash!

http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/msg83991.html

Solution 5 - Maven 2

If you ever get similar errors when using Windows PowerShell, you should try Windows' simple command-line. I didn't find out what caused this, but PowerShell seems to interpret some of Maven's parameters.

Solution 6 - Maven 2

All the posted answers rightfully discuss this from a strictly maven perspective. My issues was in doing this install for maven using Netbeans as my primary IDE. I found the below article helpful.

Credit to the following netbeans forum article: http://forums.netbeans.org/topic22907.html

In Maven project open "Add dependency" dialog
Make up some groupId, artifactId and version and fill them, OK.
Dependency will be added to the pom.xml and will appear under "Libraries" node of maven project
Right-click Lib node and "manually install artifact", fill the path to the jar. Jar should be installed to local Maven repo with coordinates entered in step 2)

Content Type	Original Author	Original Content on Stackoverflow
Question	liangzan	View Question on Stackoverflow
Solution 1 - Maven 2	Romain Linsolas	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 2 - Maven 2	Pascal Thivent	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 3 - Maven 2	David Durham	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 4 - Maven 2	S. Bollweber	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 5 - Maven 2	Koraktor	View Answer on Stackoverflow
Solution 6 - Maven 2	Paul	View Answer on Stackoverflow