How to package Axis2 modules into WAR files built with Maven

This article explains how to properly package Axis2 modules (MAR files) into Web applications built using Maven. It is assumed that the Axis2 modules themselves are available as Maven artifacts, either built in the same multi-module build or from another source.

The Axis2 modules to be included in the WAR must be declared as dependencies with artifact type mar:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.apache.rampart</groupId>
  <artifactId>rampart</artifactId>
  <version>1.6.2</version>
  <type>mar</type>
</dependency>

In order to make the Axis2 specific artifact type mar known to Maven, it is recommended to add axis2-mar-maven-plugin to the project:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
  <artifactId>axis2-mar-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.6.2</version>
  <extensions>true</extensions>
</plugin>

The reason for this being a recommendation and not a requirement is that the default values Maven uses for unknown artifact types happen to be reasonably close to what is required for MAR files.

Support for Axis2 modules was introduced in maven-war-plugin by MWAR-193 and MAR files are added automatically to the WEB-INF/modules directory inside the WAR file. There is however a problem with that feature: it fails to generate a modules.list file. This means that the WAR will only work if the servlet container deploys it in exploded form. If that restriction is acceptable to you then you can stop reading here and simply use the built-in support for Axis2 modules in maven-war-plugin.

If you want the modules.list file to be created automatically during the build, you can use axis2-repo-maven-plugin to generate the Axis2 repository¹. That plug-in was initially developed to make the Axis2 build itself more robust, but you can use it in your own projects as well.

If you choose this approach, then the first step is to disable the MAR packaging feature in maven-war-plugin. One way to do this² is to exclude the entire WEB-INF/modules tree from the WAR by adding the following option to the plug-in configuration:

<packagingExcludes>
  <!-- Disable MWAR-193 -->
  WEB-INF/modules,
  WEB-INF/modules/*
</packagingExcludes>

This means that we need to choose a different path to store the modules inside the WAR. We will use WEB-INF/repository/modules, i.e. we use WEB-INF/repository as the root of the Axis2 repository. Using this new location requires changing the axis2.repository.path init parameter of the AxisServlet, as shown below:

<servlet>
  <servlet-name>AxisServlet</servlet-name>
  <servlet-class>org.apache.axis2.transport.http.AxisServlet</servlet-class>
  <init-param>
    <param-name>axis2.repository.path</param-name>
    <param-value>/WEB-INF/repository</param-value>
  </init-param>
</servlet>

We can now set up axis2-repo-maven-plugin to create the Axis2 repository during the build:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
  <artifactId>axis2-repo-maven-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>1.6.2</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <phase>generate-resources</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>create-repository</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/webResources/WEB-INF/repository</outputDirectory>
        <generateFileLists>true</generateFileLists>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
</plugin>

The final step is to configure maven-war-plugin to include the repository in the WAR file:

<webResources>
  <resource>
    <directory>${project.build.directory}/webResources</directory>
  </resource>
</webResources>

Putting everything together, the maven-war-plugin configuration should look as follows:

<plugin>
  <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>2.5</version>
  <configuration>
    <packagingExcludes>
      <!-- Disable MWAR-193 -->
      WEB-INF/modules,
      WEB-INF/modules/*
    </packagingExcludes>
    <webResources>
      <resource>
        <directory>${project.build.directory}/webResources</directory>
      </resource>
    </webResources>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Packaging AAR files

The approach described in this article can also be used to add AAR files to the WAR (although there are other, potentially better ways to add Axis2 services to the Web application, such as including them in exploded form in the WAR). This requires the following changes:

• Declare the Axis2 services as dependencies with artifact type aar:

  <dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
    <artifactId>version</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.2</version>
    <type>aar</type>
  </dependency>
  

• Add axis2-aar-maven-plugin to the POM:

  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.axis2</groupId>
    <artifactId>axis2-aar-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.2</version>
    <extensions>true</extensions>
  </plugin>
  

• Add WEB-INF/services to packagingExcludes.