maven settings custom properties - maven

Question

I'm completely new to Maven. I'm trying to set up a new project such that it doesn't require 20 page long word docs with screenshots to set it up. I've got developers on Macs and PCs, so I need to be able to customize the catalina.home directory as I can't just impose a standard location. I thought I'd do it in the ~/.m2/settings.xml file with the following:
<profile>
<id>my-site-dev</id>
<activation>
<activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
</activation>
<properties>
<catalina.home>/path/to/apache-tomcat</catalina.home>
</properties>
</profile>
However, the documentation here: http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html#Profile_Pitfalls seems to indicate that what I'm trying to accomplish is a bad idea. What's the official way of accomplishing this so that in my pom.xml I can just reference ${catalina.home}?
And now that I've declared my profile with an id, can I fail the build if my pom.xml can't load the profile "my-site-dev"? I'd like to get that <activeByDefault> out of the settings.xml if at all possible. I don't want to interfere with their global settings for no reason, I'd like to keep as much of it self contained as possible.

Answer 1

Don't use activeByDefault, since it will cloak all other profiles:
Here is what you should use:
<profiles>
<profile>
<id>path-to-catalina.home-linux</id>
<activation>
<os>
<family>linux</family>
</os>
</activation>
<properties>
<catalina.home>...</catalina.home>
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>path-to-catalina.home-mac</id>
<activation>
<os>
<family>mac</family>
</os>
</activation>
<properties>
<catalina.home>...</catalina.home>
</properties>
</profile>
<profile>
<id>path-to-catalina.home-windows</id>
<activation>
<os>
<family>windows</family>
</os>
</activation>
<properties>
<catalina.home>...</catalina.home>
</properties>
</profile>

Answer 2

You could use a profile in your pom that gets activated based on os.
<profiles>
<profile>
<activation>
<os>
...
What are you doing that require catalina.home?
If you're doing deployment to an app server with maven, you are already outside of the 'consistent, portable build' rule set - and outside of the main use case / best practices for maven.
Not that you shouldn't do it - as it's convenient. Just make sure to separate your build projects from the deployment projects.