Maven, is a Yiddish word meaning accumulator of knowledge. Maven is a tool that can now be used for building and managing any Java-based project, something that makes the day-to-day work of Java developers easier.

Maven’s Objectives

I personally think that mavens greatest contribution to the opensource community is the way it provides developers with  a uniform build system.  Further information about maven can be found at http://maven.apache.org/index.html and tutorials on how to use maven is just a google away.  The only problem that you might encounter with maven is how to get it working through a proxy server.

To save you time, below is the line of code you’ll append at the end of your maven command so that maven would work properly even if your using a proxy server.

-DproxySet=true -DproxyHost=ur.proxy.server -DproxyPort=port

where -DproxyHost value is “YOUR PROXY SERVER” and -DproxyPort is“YOUR PORT NUMBER”

You can view your proxy settings through

Internet Explorer >> tools >> internet options >> Connections >> LAN Settings

Fire Fox >> tools >> options >> ADVANCED TAB >> settings

If you find yourself using maven from time to time specially to gather dependencies I would suggest you manually edit your maven settings.  There is an existing official tutorial on how to do this at http://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-proxies.html but to save you time, below is a portion of the tutorial which I copied from their site.

You can configure a proxy to use for some or all of your HTTP requests in Maven 2.0. The username and password are only required if your proxy requires basic authentication (note that later releases may support storing your passwords in a secured keystore – in the mean time, please ensure your settings.xml file (usually ${user.home}/.m2/settings.xml) is secured with permissions appropriate for your operating system).

The nonProxyHosts setting accepts wild cards, and each host not to proxy is separated by the | character. This matches the JDK configuration equivalent.

<settings>
  .
  .
  <proxies>
   <proxy>
      <active>true</active>
      <protocol>http</protocol>
      <host>proxy.somewhere.com</host>
      <port>8080</port>
      <username>proxyuser</username>
      <password>somepassword</password>
      <nonProxyHosts>www.google.com|*.somewhere.com</nonProxyHosts>
    </proxy>
  </proxies>
  .
  .
</settings>

Please note that currently NTLM proxies are not supported as they have not been tested. You may be able to use the relevant system properties on JDK 1.4+ to make this work.

From http://royjavelosa.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/how-to-get-maven-working-through-a-proxy-server/