maven - not copying project jar outside /lib while EAR packaging - maven

Question

This is happening while packaging the EAR
My pom.xml is packaging the ear file where it should include projectA.jar file and projectB.war outside the /lib folder. Apparently, projectA.jar file is going inside the /lib folder which is not supposed to be. I have my application.xml which tells that these two projects should be outside the lib.
Question : how do i instruct maven not to bundle projectA.jar inside the /lib folder but to bundle it outside the /lib folder?.
My EAR structure should be:
MyWebEAR
\lib
\META-INF
projectA.jar
ProjectB.war
Below is my pom.
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.xxx.sms</groupId>
<artifactId>projectA</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.xxx</groupId>
<artifactId>projectB</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<type>war</type>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<defaultLibBundleDir>lib</defaultLibBundleDir>
<earSourceDirectory>${basedir}</earSourceDirectory>
<earSourceIncludes>META-INF/*</earSourceIncludes>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
</manifest>
</archive>
<generateApplicationXml>false</generateApplicationXml>
<applicationXML>${basedir}/META-INF/application.xml</applicationXML>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
<finalName>MyWebEAR</finalName>
</build>
Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

You need to specifically define a jarModule configuration in the modules section of your maven-ear-plugin configuration for the projectA dependency and explicitly set where you want the jar placed.
So your POM would be:
<plugin>
<artifactId>maven-ear-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<defaultLibBundleDir>lib</defaultLibBundleDir>
<earSourceDirectory>${basedir}</earSourceDirectory>
<earSourceIncludes>META-INF/*</earSourceIncludes>
<archive>
<manifest>
<addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
</manifest>
</archive>
<generateApplicationXml>false</generateApplicationXml>
<applicationXML>${basedir}/META-INF/application.xml</applicationXML>
<modules>
<jarModule>
<groupId>com.xxx.sms</groupId>
<artifactId>projectA</artifactId>
<bundleDir>/</bundleDir>
</jarModule>
</modules>
</configuration>
</plugin>
The value (/) in the bundleDir tells the maven-ear-plugin to place projectA's jar in the root folder of the ear instead of the default location of lib.
You can see details on this in the plugins documentation here:
http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-ear-plugin/examples/customizing-module-location.html

Answer 2

I had the same problem in my project.
In my case, I was using an MDB so it was needed to be declared as <**ejbModule**> instead of jarModule. I also had to declare my dependency as of type ejb to be picked up Jboss (6.4):
<dependency>
<groupId>ab.cd</groupId>
<artifactId>mdb-publisher</artifactId>
<version>xxx-SNAPSHOT</version>
<type>**ejb**</type>
</dependency>