Maven EJB packaging with dependent libraries

Question

Im facing an issue how to correctly package my enterprise (EAR) application with simple WAR and EJB3 module for JBoss7 application server. The thing is, that EJB module is using XML-RPC library (from Apache) and Im still getting NoDefClassFound (classes from this xmlrpc lib) during deployment of EAR.

The thing is, that maven-ejb-plugin does not package dependencies within final EJB jar but maven-ear-plugin does package it at the root of EAR directory.

When EAR gets deployed, INSTALL is invoked on inner EJB module but it does not find xmlrpc lib class (it is not packaged with EJB jar but EAR and it does not have any entry in manifest).

EJB pom.xml

<?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>cz.ctu.fee.voxport.app_logic</groupId>
    <artifactId>core</artifactId>
    <version>1.0</version>
    <packaging>ejb</packaging>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax</groupId>
            <artifactId>javaee-api</artifactId>
            <version>6.0</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.xmlrpc</groupId>
            <artifactId>xmlrpc-common</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.3</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.xmlrpc</groupId>
            <artifactId>xmlrpc-client</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.3</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-ejb-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.3</version>
                <configuration>
                    <ejbVersion>3.1</ejbVersion>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>

Is there any way how to cleanly solve this using maven?

Answer 1

I managed to solve the problem. It seems that these libraries has to be packaged within /lib directory and not in root of EAR. Adding defaultLibBundleDir element solved the problem.

E.g.:

<build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.6</version>
                <configuration>
                    <defaultLibBundleDir>lib</defaultLibBundleDir>
...

Answer 2

Did you leave the <addClasspath>true</addClasspath> on the EJB config?

Well, you can leave it like this, but you'll get a heap of log entries (WARN) on server start complaining about the classpath entries. I prefer to set it to false. <addClasspath>false</addClasspath>