Using weblogic-maven-plugin

Author: Steve Button

Date: Jan/Feb 2015

This project contains a simple Maven project that configures and uses the weblogic-maven-plugin to deploy an application to a running WebLogic Server instance.

The coordinates of the plugin you want to be using are:

<groupId>com.oracle.weblogic</groupId>
<artifactId>weblogic-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>12.1.3-0-0</version>

The weblogic-maven-plugin:12.1.3-0-0 can perform most of its operations without needing any trace of a local WebLogic Server installation. It obtains its necessary libraries as ... maven artefacts.

The maven artefacts can be retrieved from a local/corp repository that has been populated using the oracle-maven-sync:12.1.3-0-0 plugin. This plugin will populate a specified repository with the artefacts that are present in a WebLogic Server installation, including the plugin itself.

As of January 2015 the plugin and artefacts can also be retrieved from the Oracle Maven Repository - see http://maven.oracle.com

Configuring weblogic-maven-plugin

The canonical pom.xml to use the weblogic-maven-plugin is this:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>buttso.demo.maven</groupId>
  <artifactId>plugindemo</artifactId>
  <version>1.0</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <name>plugindemo</name>
  <properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
  </properties>  
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>javax</groupId>
      <artifactId>javaee-web-api</artifactId>
      <version>6.0</version>
      <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.3.2</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>1.8</source>
          <target>1.8</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.1</version>
        <configuration>
          <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>com.oracle.weblogic</groupId> 
        <artifactId>weblogic-maven-plugin</artifactId> 
        <version>12.1.3-0-0</version> 
        <!-- These are for convenience, can be supplied on cmd line or exec mapping -->
        <configuration> 
          <user>weblogic</user>
          <password>welcome1</password>
          <name>${project.build.finalName}</name>
          <source>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.${project.packaging}</source>          
        </configuration>       
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Command Line Invocation

Note: all these goals shown below (and more) do not require a local installation of WebLogic Server to execute - no middleWare home settings is needed.

To execute the goals successfully a server has to be running somewhere to use as a target for the operation :-)

To perform a deploy operation

$ mvn com.oracle.weblogic:weblogic-maven-plugin:deploy

To perform a redeploy operation

$ mvn com.oracle.weblogic:weblogic-maven-plugin:redeploy

To perform an undeploy operation

$ mvn com.oracle.weblogic:weblogic-maven-plugin:undeploy

To see the list of deployed applications

$ mvn com.oracle.weblogic:weblogic-maven-plugin:undeploy

Execution Phase Binding for Automatic Invocation

The relevant goals of the weblogic-maven-plugin can be bound to the maven phases so they are automatically executed as part of the maven lifecycle.

<plugin>
  <groupId>com.oracle.weblogic</groupId> 
  <artifactId>weblogic-maven-plugin</artifactId> 
  <version>12.1.3-0-0</version> 
  <configuration> 
    <user>weblogic</user>
    <password>welcome1</password>
    <name>${project.build.finalName}</name>
    <source>${project.build.directory}/${project.build.finalName}.${project.packaging}</source>          
  </configuration> 
  <!-- ## Can also bind goals to execution phases for automatic execution ## -->
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>up</id>
      <phase>pre-integration-test</phase> 
      <goals> 
        <goal>deploy</goal> 
      </goals>
    </execution> 
    <execution>
      <id>down</id>
      <phase>post-integration-test</phase> 
      <goals> 
        <goal>undeploy</goal> 
      </goals>
    </execution> 
  </executions>
</plugin>

When the maven verify command is issued, the deploy and undeploy goals will be executed using the common configuration values in the respective pre and post integration-test phases.

$ mvn verify    
...

[INFO] Webapp assembled in [33 msecs]
[INFO] Building war: /Users/sbutton/Projects/Java/weblogic-maven-plugin/plugindemo/target/plugindemo-1.0.war

[INFO] 
[INFO] --- weblogic-maven-plugin:12.1.3-0-0:deploy (up) @ plugindemo ---
...
Target state: deploy completed on Server AdminServer

[INFO] 
[INFO] --- weblogic-maven-plugin:12.1.3-0-0:undeploy (down) @ plugindemo ---
...
Target state: undeploy completed on Server AdminServer

##TL;DR: A Brief History of WebLogic Maven Plugins

This will provide a short overview/timeline/history of the different maven plugins for WebLogic Server.