Permission denied when using mvn cobertura plugin - maven

Question

I'm using maven to build my project and cobertura for UT code coverage collection.
My problem is when I try to build the project, I met the error below, finally I found the failure is caused by cobertura plugin when I was issuing the command : mvn cobertura:instrument.
[INFO] Unable to obtain CommandsFile location.
Embedded error: Permission denied
I tried to go through the directories and I think I have the permission.
Have anyone ever seen the failure before? How to debug it?
$ mvn cobertura:instrument
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Reactor build order:
[INFO] MyProject
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building XXXXXX
[INFO] task-segment: [cobertura:instrument]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [cobertura:instrument]
[INFO] Skipping cobertura mojo for project with packaging type 'pom'
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building ato-client
[INFO] task-segment: [cobertura:instrument]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] [cobertura:instrument]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Unable to obtain CommandsFile location.
Embedded error: Permission denied
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Trace
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Unable to obtain CommandsFile location.
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:703)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeStandaloneGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:553)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:523)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:371)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:332)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:181)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:356)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:137)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:356)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.MojoExecutionException: Unable to obtain CommandsFile location.
at org.codehaus.mojo.cobertura.tasks.AbstractTask.executeJava(AbstractTask.java:195)
at org.codehaus.mojo.cobertura.tasks.InstrumentTask.execute(InstrumentTask.java:131)
at org.codehaus.mojo.cobertura.CoberturaInstrumentMojo.execute(CoberturaInstrumentMojo.java:145)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:483)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:678)
... 16 more
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Permission denied
at java.io.UnixFileSystem.createFileExclusively(Native Method)
at java.io.File.checkAndCreate(File.java:1704)
at java.io.File.createTempFile(File.java:1792)
at java.io.File.createTempFile(File.java:1828)
at net.sourceforge.cobertura.util.CommandLineBuilder.<init>(CommandLineBuilder.java:96)
at org.codehaus.mojo.cobertura.tasks.CommandLineArguments.getCommandsFile(CommandLineArguments.java:82)
at org.codehaus.mojo.cobertura.tasks.AbstractTask.executeJava(AbstractTask.java:191)
... 20 more
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 2 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Tue Jan 22 09:30:25 CST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 22M/241M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Answer 1

I think your current user doesn't have write permissions to the temporary folder (check java.io.tmpdir system property value):
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Permission denied
at java.io.UnixFileSystem.createFileExclusively(Native Method)
at java.io.File.checkAndCreate(File.java:1704)
at java.io.File.createTempFile(File.java:1792)
at java.io.File.createTempFile(File.java:1828)
at net.sourceforge.cobertura.util.CommandLineBuilder.(CommandLineBuilder.java:96)
at enter code here

Answer 2

The error said the user of java process has no write permission on temp directory (/tmp).
Java process will write pid to a file on the temp directory.
Jps/jstat can use this pid file to get jvm informations.
See also:
jstat
How can I prevent Java from creating hsperfdata files
jps

Answer 3

Have you checked that the user has permissions to write to the standard temporary file directory provided by the java configuration?