Right maven plugin for JBoss 7.x

Question

I would like to be able to control the following simple workflow with it:

start AS -> deploy/undeploy app -> stop AS

AFAIK there are at least 3 maven plugins promising to facilitate JBoss management and app deployment. I have no experience with any of them and I have found no resources comparing them or giving clear advice on which one to use for what.

the jboss-maven plugin on the official maven site,
the jboss-as-maven plugin on github, and
the cargo plugin on codehaus.

The jboss-maven plugin seems outdated as it is found within the maven1 thread. I have some doubts that it will work with JBoss 7

The jboss-as-maven plugin seems to support deployment and undeployment only, not the startup and shutdown. This is the plugin used by the JBoss 7 examples, but it obviosly misses the jboss administration targets

I'm not sure about the cargo plugin. I am not familiar with cargo API, but the feature list seems right and JBoss 7.x is supported.

Any practical advice/ best practices welcome. Thank you

Answer 1

Currently what you're referring to as the jboss-as-maven-plugin is the official plugin. This is the plugin that is being maintained and updated. It currently does not contain a way to start or stop the server, but feel free to file a feature request.

One advantage of the jboss-as-maven-plugin is you will soon, hopefully today, be able to deploy to both domain and standalone servers. You can also deploy resources such as data sources and add resource.

There are also plans to be able to execute arbitrary commands that would work just like CLI.

Answer 2

I'm using Maven Cargo plugin without any problems at all. Both JBoss 7.0 and 7.1 are responding correctly. So I would go that road.

I'm also using Cargo API within my JUnit tests, ant it's quite straightforward as well. It wasn't hard to use it at all. Good starting points are:

• Integrating Cargo with JUnit.
• List of articles about Cargo.
• Cargo sources - take look at extensions/trunk/ant - it's a good way to start learning how to integrate Cargo into one's app.