Aspire is tightly integrated with Apache Maven, more so than any other software tool. New distributions are built using a Maven archetype and Aspire will automatically download components and application bundles stored in Maven repositories.
- Download and install the latest version of Apache Maven: http://maven.apache.org/download.html
- Download the compressed binary files.
- Suggestion: Create a "C:\dev" directory and unpack the files there.
- "C:\dev" is a good place to store open source tools like Apache Maven, since (on rare occasions) they will not work with path names that have spaces in them.
- Add the M2_HOME and M2 environment variables in your System Properties and modify your Path variable:
- Please refer to Step 1 above for the instructions on accessing your Environment Variables via the Control Panel.
- Add the M2_HOME system variable:
- In the System Variables section, click on "New..."
- Enter the following in the "Variable name:" field: M2_HOME
- Locate the directory within your Program files where you unpacked Maven, enter this directory name as the "Variable value:" (for example, C:\dev\apache-maven-2.1.0), then click on the OK button.
- Add the M2 system variable:
- In the System Variables section, again click on "New..."
- Enter the following in the "Variable name:" field: M2
- In the "Variable value:" field, enter the following, then click on the OK button: %M2_HOME%\bin
- Modify your Path variable:
- Scroll through the System Variables to locate the Path variable, select it, then click on the Edit button.
- Click in the "Variable Value" field to activate it, then press your End key to move your cursor to the end of the value.
- Without typing any spaces, enter the the "bin" directory from Apache Maven to your environment path (for example, ;C:\dev\apache-maven-3.0.4\bin), then click on the OK button.
- Click on the OK button to close the Environment Variables window, then click on the OK button to close the System Properties window.
- Test that you can access Maven.
- Open up a new DOS command-shell (go to the Start menu, enter "cmd" in the "Run" or "Search for Programs" field, and then execute the cmd.exe program).
- At the prompt, enter the following, then press the Enter key: mvn -version
- Success is indicated when version information is returned, as shown in the image to the right.
Step 3: Connect up to the Search Technologies Maven Repository
Now that you have Maven and Java (yay!), you will need to configure Maven so that it understands where the Search Technologies Maven Repository is located. This is the location on the internet where all of the Aspire components are located. The URL is http://repository.searchtechnologies.com/artifactory/simple/community-public/. It is password protected.
Note: You will need to use your registered user name and password to access the Maven repository. Go to Registration for more information.
Once Maven understands where the ST repository is located, Maven can automatically download Aspire and all of its pieces to create new Aspire distributions with a single command.
- Create the ".m2" directory in your user-name's home directory (if it does not already exist)
- This is known as the "Maven Local Repository"
- This is the directory where Maven will store all of the components which it downloads on your local machine.
- Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\{username}\.m2
- Windows 7: C:\Users\{username}\.m2
- NOTE: Windows 7 may prevent you from creating this directory. It will say "You must type a file name."
- If this happens, you will need to create the directory using command-line tools:
- Open up a new DOS command-shell (go to the Start menu, enter "cmd" in the "Run" or "Search for Programs" field, and then execute the cmd.exe program).
- If necessary, use "cd" to change directory to your user's home directory (the C:\Users\{username} directory).
- Enter the following, then press the Enter key: mkdir .m2
- Create the settings.xml file inside your new ".m2" directory
- You will need to register to get a username and password for accessing the repository.
- A default settings.xml file is installed with Maven and can be found in the conf directory file (for example, C:\dev\apache-maven-3.0.4); locate it and copy the file.
- Navigate to your .m2 directory and paste the file.
- Open the file in any editing software.
- Go to Connecting to the Search Technologies Maven Repository and copy the settings.xml content on the page (starting with <?xml and ending with </settings>) and paste it into your settings.xml file.
- Replace "REGISTERED-USERNAME" and "REGISTERED-PASSWORD" with your registration data.
- Save the changes and close the file.
Step 4: Use Maven to Create a New Aspire Distribution
More detailed documentation for creating new distributions is here: Using The Maven Distribution Archetype
Now that Maven is installed, creating a new Aspire distribution is relatively easy. Our recommendations are to:
- Open up a DOS command window (see step 1 for instructions).
- Use "cd" to change the directory to someplace where you want to store the new Aspire distributions.
- Execute the command shown below.
mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=com.searchtechnologies.aspire -DarchetypeArtifactId=aspire-distribution-archetype -DarchetypeVersion=3.2 -DrepositoryId=stPublic
The command should be executed exactly as is. Do not modify the parameters (they specify where to locate the instructions for how to build a new Aspire Distribution).
Note that, sometimes, the "mvn" command will fail to locate the Search Technologies repository (it should be specified in your new settings.xml file). If this is a problem, add the following argument to the "mvn" command from above:
-DarchetypeRepository=http://repository.searchtechnologies.com/artifactory/simple/community-public/
After executing the command, Maven will download a bunch of different JAR files. Most of these are various Maven plug-ins which Maven itself requires to execute. These plug-ins are downloaded automatically from the "master maven repository in the sky", namely http://repo.maven.apache.org.
Finally, once Maven itself is ready to go, you will be prompted for the following information:
- groupId - This is the name of the organizational unit to which your distribution belongs. It's usually the same as your organization's domain, but in reverse order (for example, "com.searchtechnologies.aspire"). If the distribution belongs to a customer, you should use that customer's groupId.
- The purpose of the groupId is to distinguish this distribution from all other maven distributions built by other organizations throughout the world (just in case somebody somewhere wants to re-use your distribution someday).
- artifactId - This is the name for your distribution. Technically, it should be unique name across all distributions (or any other maven project) within the organization specified by groupId. Again, it's purpose is to uniquely identify your distribution within your organization.
- version - This will be the version number for this distribution.
- I usually use "0.1-SNAPSHOT".
- I say "0.1" to not be presumptuous. In other words, projects that are just starting out should start at 0.1, until they get tested and used at least a little bit.
- The "-SNAPSHOT" is a Maven standard which means that this is a project which is currently in development. It can be removed once the project is officially "released".
- mavenPassword - This will be the Maven password you got when you registered.
- mavenUsername - This will be the Maven username which you got when you registered.
After you enter the final information and press the Enter key, you are prompted to confirm the entered information. Enter Y and press the Enter key again.
Here is an example output:
>mvn archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=com.searchtechnologies.aspire -DarchetypeArtifactId=aspire-distribution-archetype -DarchetypeVersion=3.2 -DrepositoryId=stPublic
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
Downloading: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-clean-plugin/2.4.1/maven-clean-plugin-2.4.1.pom
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Define value for property 'groupId': : com.searchtechnologies
Define value for property 'artifactId': : aspire-demo
Define value for property 'version': 1.0-SNAPSHOT: : 0.1-SNAPSHOT
Define value for property 'mavenPassword': : : xxx
Define value for property 'mavenUsername': : : [email protected]
[INFO] Using property: package = pom
Confirm properties configuration:
groupId: com.searchtechnologies
artifactId: aspire-demo
version: 0.1-SNAPSHOT
package: pom
Y: : y
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] |
Using following parameters for creating project from Archetype: aspire-distribution-archetype:2.2.2BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
----Parameter: groupId, Value: com.searchtechnologiesTotal time: 01:19 min
[INFO] |
Parameter: artifactId, Valueaspire-demo
[INFO] Parameter: version, Value: 0.1-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: pom2016-02-22T00:29:09-06:00
[INFO] |
Parameter: packageInPathFormat, ValuepomParameter: version, Value: 0.1-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] Parameter: package, Value: pom
[INFO] Parameter: groupId, Value: com.searchtechnologies
[INFO] Parameter: artifactId, Value: aspire-demo
[INFO] Parameter: mavenPassword, Value: xxx
[INFO] Parameter: mavenUsername, Value: [email protected]
[INFO] project created from Archetype in dir: C:\Users\pnelson\Desktop\AspireDemo\aspire-demo
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
--------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 45.292s
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Jan 26 13:28:55 EST 2014
[INFO] Final Memory: 9M/109M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Step 5: Build the Distribution
So now you can run Aspire, right? Well, actually, there's one more step.
The purpose of the Maven archetype (the previous step) was to build a Maven distribution project. Essentially this is a template distribution. We will now need to use Maven to build the distribution itself.
The sequence goes like this:
Aspire Distribution Archetype --mvn--> Aspire Distribution Project --mvn--> Aspire Distribution
Why is it so complicated? Well, Aspire is meant for industrial-strength production installations. It is not a toy system. This means:
- There needs to be a solid, repeatable method for building deployments.
- The same distribution will likely need to be built for multiple environments:
- Development
- Quality Assurance
- Staging
- Production
The Maven Distribution Project amply fulfills these needs. It provides a template for building copies of your distribution. Maven "profiles" can be used to customize the template for different environments, specifying different server addresses and database names for the Development environment vs the Staging environment, for example.
Okay, so let's actually build our Aspire distribution. Fortunately, this is very easy.
- Change your working directory into your Maven distribution project; this is the same as what you entered in step 5 for the artifactId.
- In the command window, execute: mvn clean package
Again, since this is your first time executing "mvn package", Maven will download a bunch of plug-ins, which it needs to do its job. But once that's done, it will build the Aspire distribution and you're ready to go.
> cd aspire-demo
> mvn clean package
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Aspire Distribution Project 0.1-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] --------------Step 3: Build the distribution
So now you can run Aspire, right? Well, actually, there's one more step.
The purpose of the Maven archetype (the previous step) was to build a Maven distribution project. Essentially, this is a template distribution. Now let's use Maven to build the distribution itself.
The sequence goes like this:
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Aspire Distribution Archetype --mvn--> Aspire Distribution Project --mvn--> Aspire Distribution |
Why is it so complicated?
Well, Aspire is meant for industrial-strength production installations. It is not a toy system. This means:
- There needs to be a solid, repeatable method for building deployments.
- The same distribution will likely need to be built for multiple environments:
- Development
- Quality Assurance
- Staging
- Production
The Maven Distribution Project amply fulfills these needs. It provides a template for building copies of your distribution. Maven "profiles" can be used to customize the template for different environments, specifying different server addresses and database names for the Development environment vs the Staging environment, for example.
Build the Aspire distribution
Okay, so let's actually build our Aspire distribution. Fortunately, this is very easy.
- Change your working directory into your Maven distribution project. This is the same as what you entered for the artifactId.
- In the command window, run: mvn clean package
Again, since this is your first time running "mvn package", Maven will download a bunch of plug-ins, which it needs. But after that's done, it will build the Aspire distribution and you're ready to go.
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> cd aspire-demo
>mvn clean package
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Aspire Distribution Project 0.1-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
Downloading: https://repository.searchtechnologies.com/artifactory/public/com/searchtechnologies/aspire/aspire-bootloader/3.2/maven-metadata.xml
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.
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[INFO] Reading assembly descriptor: distribution.xml
[WARNING] Cannot include project artifact: com.searchtechnologies:aspire-demo:jar:0.1-SNAPSHOT; it doesn't have an associated file or directory.
[WARNING] Cannot include project artifact: com.searchtechnologies:aspire-demo:jar:0.1-SNAPSHOT; it doesn't have an associated file or directory.
[WARNING] The following patterns were never triggered in this artifact exclusion filter:
o 'com.searchtechnologies:aspire-demo:jar:0.1-SNAPSHOT'
[WARNING] Cannot include project artifact: com.searchtechnologies:aspire-demo:jar:0.1-SNAPSHOT; it doesn't have an associated file or directory.
[WARNING] Cannot include project artifact: com.searchtechnologies:aspire-demo:jar:0.1-SNAPSHOT; it doesn't have an associated file or directory.
[INFO] Copying files to C:\Users\AspireDemo\aspire-demo\target\aspire-demo-0.1-SNAPSHOT-distribution
[WARNING] Assembly file: C:\Users\AspireDemo\aspire-demo\target\aspire-demo-0.1-SNAPSHOT-distribution is not a regular file (it may be a directory). It cannot be attached to the project build for installation or deployment.
[INFO] ---------------------------------------------------------- |
Downloading: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-resources-plugin/2.5/maven-resources plugin-2.5.pom
Downloaded: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-resources-plugin/2.5/maven-resources plugin-2.5.pom (7 KB at 15.1 KB/se c)
Downloading: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-plugins/19/maven-plugins-19.pom
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.
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[INFO] Reading assembly descriptor: distribution.xml
[INFO] Copying files to C:\Users\pnelson\Desktop\AspireDemo\aspire-demo\target\aspire-demo-0.1-SNAPSHOT-distribution
[WARNING] Assembly file: C:\Users\pnelson\Desktop\AspireDemo\aspire-demo\target\aspire-demo-0.1-SNAPSHOT-distribution is not a regular file (it may be a directory). It cannot be attached to the project build for installation or deployment.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS--------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 7.855 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2016-02-22T00:37:05-06:00
[INFO] Final Memory: 14M/168M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
[INFO] Total time: 3:12.857s
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Jan 25 13:46:04 EST 2012
[INFO] Final Memory: 9M/51M Anchor |
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| Messages that appear when building the distribution |
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Messages that appear when building the distribution (optionally)
There are a number of warning message you may see when building the distribution. Don't let this worry you. Basically, if you see the following message, everything worked.
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[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
There's an explanation for warnings you may see
This warning refers to the fact we don’t "hard code" the encoding for the ASCII files we use. This shouldn’t cause any issues as long as you’re not working in a language that uses extended character sets.
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[WARNING] Using platform encoding (MacRoman actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent! |
We changed the build process so that you could include dependencies in the pom file to cause “application bundles” to be copied from Maven in to the target bundles/aspire directory at build time. This allows Aspire to use those application bundles on hosts that do not have internet access. You've always been able to do that with component bundles. The message below tells you that you have no dependencies with the group id com.searchtechnologies.appbundles.
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[WARNING] The following patterns were never triggered in this artifact inclusion filter:
o 'com.searchtechnologies.appbundles:*' |
Some versions of Maven's mvn command produce an unwanted file and copy it to the target bundles/aspire directory . This warning indicates that your version did not (as this line warns you the file is not being excluded when things are being copied to the target directory).
Messages you could see when building the distribution
There are a number of warning message you may see when building the distribution. Don't let this worry you. Basically, if you see the following message, everything worked OK :
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, here's an explanation of warnings you may see.
This warning refers to the fact we don’t hard code the encoding for the ascii files we use. We tried to do this in the very early stages and it gave us more problems than it fixed. This shouldn’t cause any issues as long as you’re not working in any languages that use extended character sets.
[WARNING] Using platform encoding (MacRoman actually) to copy filtered resources, i.e. build is platform dependent!
We recently changed the build process so that you could include dependencies in the pom file to cause “application bundles” to be copied from Maven in to the target bundles/aspire directory at build time. This allows Aspire to use those application bundles on hosts which have no internet access. You've always been able to do that with component bundles. The message below tells you that you’ve not got any dependencies with the group id com.searchtechnologies.appbundles.
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[WARNING] The following patterns were never triggered in this artifact |
inclusionexclusion filter:
o 'com. |
searchtechnologies.appbundles:*'
Some versions of Maven's mvn command (mainly 2.x) produce an unwanted file and copy it to the target bundles/aspire directory . This warning indicates your version didn’t (as this line warns you the file is not being excluded when things are being copied to the target directory)
[WARNING] The following patterns were never triggered in this artifact exclusion filter:
o 'com.searchtools:aspire-demo:jar:0.3-SNAPSHOT'
This warning just refers to the fact that the build is copying to a directory and therefore can not produce something that can be place back in a Maven repository.
[WARNING] Assembly file: /Users/st/aspire-searchtools:aspire-demo:jar:0.3-SNAPSHOT' |
This warning refers to the fact that the build is copying to a directory and cannot produce something that can be placed back in a Maven repository.
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[WARNING] Assembly file: /Users/st/aspire-test-3/aspire-demo/target/aspire-demo-0.3-SNAPSHOT-distribution is not a regular file (it may be a directory). It cannot be attached to the project build for installation or deployment. |
mvn install
In Maven 2.x, you can get away with running the following command to build the distribution:
mvn install
In Maven 3.x, you canYou can't run this command to build a distribution, so make sure you use mvn package as (as detailed above) instead. If you do use install, the build will fail and you'll see the following :
message.
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[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-install-plugin:2.3.1:install (default-install) on project test-project: The packaging for this project did not assign a file to the build artifact -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoExecutionException |
What do we have?
The following diagram shows the directory structure you have created within your Maven distribution project so far:Image Removed
Image Added