Nexus Professional provides a feature called the Staging Suite, which allows developers to deploy sets of artifacts to unique, isolated repositories for testing. When all artifacts for a prospective release have been deployed, the repository can be sealed, providing a convenient single location that houses the complete set of artifacts for the proposed release. Once the artifacts are tested, the repository as a whole can be promoted into a permanent repository to finalize the release for general consumption, or dropped to make room for another attempt.
The Nexus Plugin for Maven gives you access to this feature from the Maven command line.
All of the mojos below have two important attributes:
If you don't use serverAuthId, or the corresponding entries in your settings.xml cannot be located, you will be prompted for all login information except username. In this case, the System property ${user.name} will be used unless you specify the username parameter.
If you've already configured Maven to authenticate your access to Nexus in order to resolve artifacts, you can reuse this configuration when interacting with Nexus' other functions. Simply reference the server entry id from your settings.xml file, like this:
mvn nexus:staging-list -DserverAuthId=my.nexus
If you watch the console output, you should see the following:
[...] [INFO] Using authentication information for server: 'my.nexus'. [...]
On the other hand, if the specified server entry doesn't exist, you'll see the following instead:
[...] [WARN] Server authentication entry not found for: 'my.nexus'. [...]
In order to access the staging suite in your Nexus instance, the plugin must be told where Nexus is. Additionally, in most cases a valid user login will be required to access your relevant staging information. By default, if you don't specify the nexusURL and password parameters, the plugin will prompt you for them. If you don't specify the username parameter, the Java System property ${user.name} will be used.
For example:
[...] Nexus URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus Password: ******** Description: This is a test repository [...]
Once you've deployed one or more sets of artifacts as release candidate to Nexus, you'll have one or more open staging repositories. There are a variety of actions you can take with these repositories, but maybe one of the most basic is to list them. This gives you a pretty good view into the status of your release(s).
The basic command is:
mvn nexus:staging-list
and the console output will look something like this:
[...] [INFO] Logging into Nexus: http://localhost:8082/nexus [INFO] User: testuser [INFO] [INFO] The following OPEN staging repositories were found: - staging-003 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-003 [INFO] The following CLOSED staging repositories were found: - staging-001 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-001 Description: This is a test repository - staging-002 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-002 Description: This is another test repository
You can find more information about this mojo here.
Before your team can run any tests against the set of artifacts that constitute your release, you need to mark the open staging repository as closed. This means that no additional artifacts can be added to that specific staging repository, making the set of artifacts it contains an immutable snapshot. When it is closed, the repository will become available for artifact resolution.
The basic command is:
mvn nexus:staging-close
If you have one or more open staging repositories that match the current project coordinate, you'll see something like the following in the console output:
[INFO] Available Staging Repositories: 1: staging-002 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-002 Select a repository to close (1) 1: : 1 Repository Description: This is a test repository [INFO] Finishing staging repository for: 'com.myco:my-project:1': - staging-002 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-002 [INFO] The following CLOSED staging repositories were found for: 'com.myco:my-project:1': - staging-001 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-001 Description: This is a test repository - staging-002 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-002 Description: This is another test repository
The output above shows that the staging-close mojo found an open staging repository - staging-001 - for the current project, then told Nexus to close it. Afterward, it displayed the list of closed staging repositories, which included the one we just closed.
If you don't have an open staging repository, you'll see something like this instead:
No open staging repositories found. Nothing to do! [INFO] The following CLOSED staging repositories were found for: 'com.myco:my-project:1': - staging-001 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-001 Description: This is a test repository - staging-002 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-002 Description: This is another test repository
You can find more information about this mojo here.
In the unfortunate event that your project artifacts fail during testing, you may need to drop the staging repository that houses them, in order to avoid confusing them with newer candidate releases.
The basic command is:
mvn nexus:staging-drop
If you have one or more closed staging repositories, you'll see something like the following output:
[INFO] Available Staging Repositories: 1: staging-006 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-006 Description: This is a test repository Select a repository to drop (1) 1: : 1 [INFO] Dropping staged repository: - staging-006 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-006 Description: This is a test repository
The mojo will present you with a list of closed staging repositories, with the first in the list selected as the default response. If you simply hit the Enter key, the default will be used; otherwise, the repository corresponding to the number you select will be used.
If you have no closed staging repositories, you'll see something like this instead:
[INFO] No closed staging repositories found. Nothing to do!
You can find more information about this mojo here.
On the other hand, if your project artifacts pass all tests, you will find that you need to promote the staging repository that houses them, in order to finalize the release and make the artifacts available for public consumption.
The basic command is:
mvn nexus:staging-promote
If you have one or more closed staging repositories, you'll see something like the following output:
[INFO] Available Staging Repositories: 1: staging-006 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-006 Description: This is a test repository Select a repository to promote (1) 1: : 1 Target Repository ID: releases [INFO] Promoting staging repository to: releases: - staging-006 (profile: Example Profile) URL: http://localhost:8082/nexus/content/repositories/staging-006 Description: This is a test repository
The mojo will present you with a list of closed staging repositories, with the first in the list selected as the default response. If you simply hit the Enter key, the default will be used; otherwise, the repository corresponding to the number you select will be used.
If you have no closed staging repositories, you'll see something like this instead:
[INFO] No closed staging repositories found. Nothing to do!
You can find more information about this mojo here.
