how to configure war dependent on ejb jar and create ear file combinedly

Question

I am new to Maven and also learning it. I have two projects in eclipse one is retailproducts which contains UI stuff and other project is ejb project retailservice. I written separate pom files for both the projects and able to generate war and jar files. What i have to do is.

a) I have to configure jar file in war file as jar file contains ejb stuff which is required by webappliction
b) after creating war file i have to create ear file which will have war file in turn jar file.

how can I do this.

I am providing both the pom.xmls here.

<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>RetailProducts</groupId>
  <artifactId>RetailProducts</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <packaging>war</packaging>
  <name>RetailProducts</name>

  <dependencies>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsf-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.7</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.sun.faces</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsf-impl</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.7</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
            <version>1.2</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.5</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.1</version>
        </dependency>
                <!-- Tomcat 6 need this -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.sun.el</groupId>
            <artifactId>el-ri</artifactId>
            <version>1.0</version>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <finalName>JavaServerFaces</finalName>

        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.3.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.6</source>
                    <target>1.6</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>2.1.1</version>
      <!-- <configuration> section added to pick up the WEB-INF/web.xml inside WebContent -->
      <configuration>
         <webResources>
            <resource>
               <directory>WebContent</directory>
            </resource>
         </webResources>
      </configuration>
   </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

<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>RetailService</groupId>
  <artifactId>RetailService</artifactId>
  <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>RetailService</name>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>log4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.15</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
                <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
                <artifactId>jms</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
                <artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
                <artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-core</artifactId>
        <version>3.6.10.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-annotations</artifactId>
        <version>3.5.6-Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-commons-annotations</artifactId>
        <version>3.3.0.ga</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-entitymanager</artifactId>
        <version>3.6.10.Final</version>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.hibernate.javax.persistence</groupId>
        <artifactId>hibernate-jpa-2.0-api</artifactId>
        <version>1.0.1.Final</version>
    </dependency> 
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
        <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.8</version>
    </dependency>    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.ejb</groupId>
        <artifactId>ejb-api</artifactId>
        <version>3.0</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies> 
  <build>
    <sourceDirectory>ejbModule</sourceDirectory>
    <resources>
      <resource>
        <directory>ejbModule</directory>
        <excludes>
          <exclude>**/*.java</exclude>
        </excludes>
      </resource>
    </resources>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>3.0</version>
        <configuration>
          <source>1.7</source>
          <target>1.7</target>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
</project>

Answer 1

When building Java EE 5.0 application containing both WAR and EJB modules you usually have 3 Maven modules that define:

1. Web application
2. EJBs
3. EAR

You have first two but don't have EAR module. It should look something like this:

<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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>Retail</groupId>
    <artifactId>RetailEAR</artifactId>
    <packaging>ear</packaging>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.8</version>
                <configuration>
                    <defaultLibBundleDir>lib</defaultLibBundleDir>
                    <skinnyWars>true</skinnyWars>
                    <version>5</version>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>RetailService</groupId>
            <artifactId>RetailService</artifactId>
            <type>ejb</type>
            <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>RetailProducts</groupId>
            <artifactId>RetailProducts</artifactId>
            <type>war</type>
            <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

</project>

Then when you package EAR module it handles dependencies for web application. The parameter skinnyWars controls if dependencies should be duplicated inside WAR or not. Usually you don't want them inside WAR since they are accessible to web application from EAR itself.