Maven: The Complete Reference
6.1. Maven Command Line Options

To define a property use the following option on the command line:

This is the option most frequently used to customized the behavior of Maven plugins. Some examples of using the -D command line argument:

$ mvn help:describe -Dcmd=compiler:compile
$ mvn install -Dmaven.test.skip=true

Properties defined on the command line are also available as properties to be used in a Maven POM or Maven Plugin. Form more information about referencing Maven properties, see Chapter 9, Properties and Resource Filtering.

Properties can also be used to activate build profiles. For more information about Maven build profiles, see Chapter 5, Build Profiles.

To list the available command line parameters, use the following command line option:

Executing Maven with this option produces the following output:

$ mvn --help

usage: mvn [options] [<goal(s)>] [<phase(s)>]

Options:
-am,--also-makeIf project list is specified, also
build projects required by the
list
-amd,--also-make-dependentsIf project list is specified, also
build projects that depend on
projects on the list
-B,--batch-modeRun in non-interactive (batch)
mode
-C,--strict-checksums  Fail the build if checksums don't
match
-c,--lax-checksums Warn if checksums don't match
-cpu,--check-plugin-updatesForce upToDate check for any
relevant registered plugins
-D,--define <arg>  Define a system property
-e,--errorsProduce execution error messages
-emp,--encrypt-master-password <arg>   Encrypt master security password
-ep,--encrypt-password <arg>   Encrypt server password
-f,--file  Force the use of an alternate POM
file.
-fae,--fail-at-end Only fail the build afterwards;
allow all non-impacted builds to
continue
-ff,--fail-fastStop at first failure in
reactorized builds
-fn,--fail-never   NEVER fail the build, regardless
of project result
-gs,--global-settings <arg>Alternate path for the global
settings file
-h,--help  Display help information
-N,--non-recursive Do not recurse into sub-projects
-npr,--no-plugin-registry  Don't use
~/.m2/plugin-registry.xml for
plugin versions
-npu,--no-plugin-updates   Suppress upToDate check for any
relevant registered plugins
-o,--offline   Work offline
-P,--activate-profiles <arg>   Comma-delimited list of profiles
to activate
-pl,--projects <arg>   Build specified reactor projects
instead of all projects
-q,--quiet Quiet output - only show errors
-r,--reactor   Dynamically build reactor from
subdirectories
-rf,--resume-from <arg>Resume reactor from specified
project
-s,--settings <arg>Alternate path for the user
settings file
-U,--update-snapshots  Forces a check for updated
releases and snapshots on remote
repositories
-up,--update-plugins   Synonym for cpu
-V,--show-version  Display version information
WITHOUT stopping build
-v,--version   Display version information
-X,--debug Produce execution debug output

If you are looking for information about the goals and parameters available from a specific Maven plugin, see Section 6.3, “Using the Maven Help Plugin”.

To activate one or more build profiles from the command line, use the following option:

For more information about build profiles, see Chapter 5, Build Profiles.

To display Maven version information, use one of the following options on the command line:

Both of these options produce the same version information output, but the -v option will terminate the Maven process after printing out the version. You would use the -V option if you wanted to have the Maven version information present at the beginning of your build’s output. This can come in handy if you are running Maven in a continuous build environment and you need to know what version of Maven was used for a particular build.

Maven Version Information. 

$ mvn -v
Apache Maven 2.2.1 (r801777; 2009-08-06 14:16:01-0500)
Java version: 1.6.0_15
Java home: /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/1.6.0/Home
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: MacRoman
OS name: "mac os x" version: "10.6.1" arch: "x86_64" Family: "mac"

If you ever need to use Maven without having access to a network, you should use the following option to prevent any attempt to check for updates to plugins or dependencies over a network:

When running with the offline option enabled, Maven will not attempt to connect to a remote repository to retrieve artifacts.

If you don’t like the pom.xml file name, the location of your user-specific Maven settings, or the default location of your global settings file, you can customize any of these things with the following options:

The following commands allow you to use Maven to encrypt passwords for storage in a Maven settings file:

Encrypting passwords is documented in Section 15.2.11, “Encrypting Passwords in Maven Settings”.

The following options control how Maven reacts to a build failure in the middle of a multi-module project build:

The -fn and -fae options are useful options for multi-module builds that are running within a continuous integration tool like Hudson. The -ff option is very useful for developers running interactive builds who want to have rapid feedback during the development cycle.

If you want to control Maven’s logging level, you can use one of the following three command line options:

The -q option only prints a message to the output if there is an error or a problem.

The -X option will print an overwhelming amount of debugging log messages to the output. This option is primarily used by Maven developers and by Maven plugin developers to diagnose problems with Maven code during development. This -X option is also very useful if you are attempting to diagnose a difficult problem with a dependency or a classpath.

The -e option will come in handy if you are a Maven developer, or if you need to diagnose an error in a Maven plugin. If you are reporting an unexpected problem with Maven or a Maven plugin, you will want to pass both the -X and -e options to your Maven process.

To run Maven in batch mode use the following option:

Batch mode is essential if you need to run Maven in a non-interactive, continuous integration environment. When running in non-interactive mode, Maven will never stop to accept input from the user. Instead, it will use sensible default values when it requires input.

The following command line options affect the way that Maven will interact with remote repositories and how it verifies downloaded artifacts:

If you are concerned about security, you will want to run Maven with the -C option. Maven repositories maintain an MD5 and SHA1 checksum for every artifact stored in a repository. Maven is configured to warn the end-user if an artifact’s checksum doesn’t match the downloaded artifact. Passing in the -C option will cause Maven to fail the build if it encounters an artifact with a bad checksum.

The -U option is useful if you want to make sure that Maven is checking for the latest versions of all SNAPSHOT dependencies.

Controlling Plugin Updates. The following command line options tell Maven how it should update (or not update) Maven plugins from remote repositories:

The following command line option that affects the way Maven downloads plugins from a remote repository:

When preset, the -npr command line option will tell Maven not to consult the Plugin Registry. For more information about the Plugin Registry, go here: http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-plugin-registry.html.

There will be times when you simply want to run a Maven build without having Maven descend into all of a project’s submodules. You can do this by using the following command line option:

Running this will only cause Maven to execute a goal or step through the lifecycle for the project in the current directory. Maven will not attempt to build all of the projects in a multi-module project when you use the -N command line option.