mvnx
v4.2.0
Published
Execute JARs from maven repositories with no strings attached.
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Readme
Table of Contents
- Features
- Up and Running
- CLI Usage
- Configuration File
- mvnx :heart: GitHub Packages
- Remote Repository Alias
- Remote Repository Authentication
- Contributing
- License
Features
mvnx is a JAR file executor with a catch: it obtains the JAR from local or remote Maven repositories.
- No Or Minimal Configuration Needed. There's no need for convoluted configuration, XML files, DSLs and the usual ceremony of the JVM world. If you use Maven Central, then just specify the Maven coordinates along with the command line arguments and mvnx will take care of the rest.
- Local Repository Caching. Artifact resolution starts in your local repository for maximum speed and minimal network usage. Downloaded artifacts are also cached in the local repository.
- Authentication Support. mvnx supports HTTP Basic Authentication to remote maven repositories. This is required by repositories such as those of GitHub Packages. This feature needs a bit of a configuration though. See Remote Repository Authentication.
- Remote Repository Alias and Prefix. Remote repository URLs can be given aliases. With a proper alias set, you can do things like
which will expand into something like thismvnx gpr/OWNER/REPO/artifactId:groupId:version
Magic! :unicorn: See mvnx :heart: GitHub Packages and Remote Repository Aliasmvnx http://maven.pkg.github.com/OWNER/REPO/artifactId:groupId:version
- Latest Version Retrieval. If you don't need a specific version of some artifact then mvnx will automatically get the latest available version. Just omit the version coordinate!
However, be aware of the following limitation:
- Fat JARs only. mvnx will not perform dependency resolution.
Up and Running
There's really not much to it, no matter which method you choose:
Using npx
If you already have Node (and thus npx) installed, you can run JARs using one command.
- Execute your favorite JAR with some x-ception.
npx mvnx com.github.ricksbrown:cowsay "Hello, World!"
Using npm -g
If you don't want to type npx over and over (or just want to get rid of the startup penalty of npx) then you can install mvnx globally with npm.
Install mvnx.
npm install -g mvnx
Execute your favorite JAR.
mvnx com.github.ricksbrown:cowsay "Hello, World!"
Using native executables
If you're not a fan of Node then you might want to try the native executables published with each release:
Download the latest executable
- Latest Release
- Native executables are offered for
- Linux x64
- Windows x64
- MacOS x64
Execute your favorite JAR.
mvnx com.github.ricksbrown:cowsay "Hello, World!"
CLI Usage
mvnx [mvnx options] <artifact> [artifact arguments]
Examples
- Query the latest version. Does not work if
--ignore-local
is set.mvnx gro.up:artifact
- Suppressing the mvnx output and passing multiple arguments to the JAR.
mvnx -q gro.up:artifact:1.1.0 --will -b -passed="to the JAR"
- Querying a custom repository instead of Maven Central. In this case, you should specify the base path of the repository, mvnx will take care of the actual path to the requested artifact.
mvnx https://custom.repository:8080/groupId:artifactId "A single string argument"
mvnx options:
- --quiet -q
- Suppress mvnx output (except for errors) and display output only from the JVM. Very useful when piping the output of mvnx.
- --java-executable -j
- Custom java executable path and options. By default, mvnx will use
java
and simply append-jar somefilename
.
- Custom java executable path and options. By default, mvnx will use
- --ignore-local
- Ignore pre-existing artifacts in the local repository and attempt to download the requested artifact from the remote repository. Downloaded artifacts will not be cached in the local repository.
- The inverse of --only-local.
- --only-local
- Attempt to find the requested artifact in the local repository only. Will not make requests to any remote repository.
- The inverse of --ignore-local.
- --local-repository -l
- Path to a local repository. Will attempt to use the default local repository ~/.m2 if missing.
- --help --h
- Display the help.
mvnx --help
- Display the help.
artifact:
- Usual maven coordinates extended with a repository specification:
[remote repository URL or identifier/]<groupId>:<artifactId>[:version]
- If
version
is omitted, then mvnx will attempt to retrieve the latest version from the remote repository. Note, that this feature does not work if the--only-local
flag is set. - If no remote repository is specified, then mvnx will query the Central Repository.
artifact arguments
- The arguments you want to pass to the executed JAR.
Configuration File
Although, you can run mvnx with absolutely no persistent configuration, you can make your life much easier by creating a configuration file. In the configuration file, you can
- set remote repository credentials,
- set remote repository aliases.
mvnx will search for this file at
[local-repository]/mvnx.json
where local-repository
is the value of the --local-repository
option (~/.m2
by default).
An empty configuration file should look like this:
{
"servers": [
]
}
mvnx :heart: GitHub Packages
If you want to easily make use of GitHub Packages, add the following entry to the configuration file (by default located at ~/.m2/mvnx.json
):
{
"servers": [
{
// Or any other prefix you prefer.
"id": "gpr",
"isPrefix": true,
"url": "https://maven.pkg.github.com/$$",
"username": "Your GitHub Handle",
// GitHub Personal Access Token.
// You can create one at https://github.com/settings/tokens
"password": "some-token"
}
]
}
Then, you can use this alias as follows to retrieve any public (more precisely, visible for you) JARs:
mvnx gpr/OWNER/REPO/groupId:artifactId:version
Remote Repository Alias
Aliases can be set in the mvnx configuration file.
Creating an Alias
An alias can be created by adding a new entry to the configuration file:
{
"servers": [
{
// The alias you want to use in the command line.
"id": "alias",
// The URL of the remote repository.
"url": "http://url.repository"
}
]
}
Now you're free to use the value of the id
field instead of the URL as follows:
mvnx alias/artifactId:groupdId:version
Creating a Prefix
A prefix is a more capable alias with substitution functionality. It's a great solution for services like GitHub Packages. Let's assume that you want
mvnx prefix/team-a/artifact:groupId
and
mvnx prefix/team-b/artifact:groupId
to use the remote repositories http://private.repository/teams/team-a/maven2
and http://private.repository/teams/team-b/maven2
. Then, you can create a new prefix as follows:
{
"servers": [
{
// The prefix to be used on the command line. mvnx will recognize the substitution by seeing this string.
"id": "prefix",
// Mandatory.
"isPrefix": true,
// The URL to substitute into.
// $$ will be replaced with the repository identifier (for example "prefix/team-a")
// with the prefix removed.
"url": "https://private.repository/teams/$$/maven2"
}
]
}
Remote Repository Authentication
For remote authentication using HTTP Basic, you have three options:
Using Environment Variables
Simply set the following two environment variables:
MVNX_REMOTE_USERNAME
,MVNX_REMOTE_PASSWORD
Ideal for CI workflows.
Using mvnx.json
You can also set the credentials in the configuration file, see Remote Repository Alias for more details) as follows:
{
"servers": [
{
"id": "optional alias",
"url": "The URL of the remote repository.",
"username": "Username for the repository.",
"password": "Password for the repository."
}
]
}
You may also set an id
if you want to use an alias. Going forward, mvnx will always use the specified credentials if the appropriate remote repository is queried.
This approach works best if
- you don't have maven installed,
- or maven is available but you don't want to tinker with the maven
settings.xml
.
Using settings.xml and mvnx.json
Let's assume, that you already have the following server in your settings.xml
:
<server>
<id>some-server</id>
<username>user</username>
<password>pw</password>
</server>
In this case, to re-use these credentials, instead of copy-pasting them, you can create the following mvnx configuration entry:
{
"servers": [
{
// Must be the same as the on in settings.xml!
"id": "some-server",
"url": "The URL of the remote repository."
}
]
}
By using the same id in both the settings.xml
and the mvnx.json
, mvnx will be able to load the appropriate credentials.
This approach is great if you don't want to set credentials twice.
Contributing
Contributions, regardless of their type, are always welcome in mvnx! Take a look at the Contributing Guide for more information.
License
Licensed under the Apache License 2.0.