GitLab CI template for Maven

This project implements a GitLab CI/CD template to build, test and analyse your Maven-based projects.

Usage

In order to include this template in your project, add the following to your gitlab-ci.yml:

include:
  - project: 'to-be-continuous/maven'
    ref: '3.3.0'
    file: '/templates/gitlab-ci-maven.yml'

Global configuration

The Maven template uses some global configuration throughout all jobs.

About $MAVEN_CFG_DIR

This variable is used to define the Maven configuration directory. It is used to declare the cache policy and marked the ${MAVEN_CFG_DIR}/repository directory as cached (not to download Maven dependencies over and over again).

If you have a good reason to do differently, you'll have to override the MAVEN_CLI_OPTS variable as well as the cache policy.

About $MAVEN_SETTINGS_FILE

If a file is found at the $MAVEN_SETTINGS_FILE location, the template automatically uses it as a settings.xml (using the --settings option on command line).

Note that with this design you are free to either:

1. inline the settings.xml file into your repository source (⚠️ make sure not to inline secrets but use the ${env.MY_PASSWORD} replacement pattern instead and define the MY_PASSWORD variable as secret project variable),
2. or define the settings.xml content as a file type project variable.

Jobs

mvn-build job

The Maven template features a job mvn-build that performs build and tests at once. This stage is performed in a single job for optimization purpose (it saves time) and also for test jobs dependency reasons (some test jobs such as SONAR analysis have a dependency on test results).

It uses the following variable:

About Code Coverage

With its default arguments, the GitLab CI template for Maven forces the use of JaCoCo Maven Plugin to compute code coverage during unit tests execution.

In addition it makes the necessary to integrate code coverage stats into your GitLab project (report badge and viewable coverage in merge requests).

If yo want to fix the JaCoCo plugin version or tweak the default configuration, you may have to configure the JaCoCo Maven Plugin in your pom.xml, but be aware of the following:

• do not declare JaCoCo executions for prepare-agent and report goals as each would run twice during unit tests (not necessarily with the expected configuration). If you really need to do so anyway, you'll have to override the $MAVEN_BUILD_ARGS variable to remove the explicit invocation to JaCoCo goals.
• make sure the report goal computes a CSV report, that is used by the Maven template to compute the global coverage stat.

More info:

• Maven Surefire Plugin
• surefire:test parameters

mvn-sonar job — SonarQube analysis

This job is disabled by default and performs a SonarQube analysis of your code.

The job is bound to the test stage and uses the following variables:

Automatic Branch Analysis & Merge Request Analysis

This template relies on SonarScanner's GitLab integration, that is able to auto-detect whether to launch Branch Analysis or Merge Request Analysis from GitLab's environment variables.

⚠️ This feature also depends on your SonarQube server version and license. If using Community Edition, you'll have to install the sonarqube-community-branch-plugin to enable automatic Branch & Merge Request analysis (only works from SonarQube version 8).

⚠️ Merge Request Analysis only works if you're running Merge Request pipeline strategy (default).

Disable the job

ℹ️ See Usage for more information about disabling any job that MAY not be required in a project or group.

mvn-dependency-check job

This job enables a manual Dependency-Check analysis.

It is bound to the test stage, and uses the following variables:

A Dependency Check is a quite long operation and therefore the job is configured to be ran manually by default.

However, if you want to enable an automatic Dependency-Check scan, you will have to override the rules keyword for the mvn-dependency-check job.

Furthermore, if you want to upload Dependency-Check reports to SonarQube, you have to:

• Move mvn-dependency-check to the build stage
• Add -Dformats=html,json,xml to MAVEN_DEPENDENCY_CHECK_ARGS to output reports
  • HTML report to read the report on SonarQube UI
  • JSON report to create SonarQube issues from the report
  • XML report to import into DefectDojo security dashboard
• Add -Dsonar.dependencyCheck.htmlReportPath and -Dsonar.dependencyCheck.jsonReportPath with the paths of the generated html and json reports to SonarQube arguments.

More info:

• Maven Dependency-Check Plugin

mvn-no-snapshot-deps job

This job checks if the project has release-only dependencies, i.e., no _*-SNAPSHOT_ versions, using the Maven Enforcer plugin.

Failure is allowed in feature branches.

It is bound to the test stage, and uses the following variables:

mvn-sbom job

This job generates a SBOM file listing all dependencies using cyclonedx-maven-plugin.

It is bound to the test stage, and uses the following variables:

mvn-snapshot & mvn-release jobs

These jobs are disabled by default and perform, respectively, the following:

• a Maven deploy of your Java packages (jar, war, etc.),
• a Maven release of your current branch.

They are bound to the publish stage, and use the following variables:

More info:

• Maven Deploy Plugin
• Maven Release Plugin

semantic-release integration

If you activate the semantic-release-info job from the semantic-release template, the mvn-release job will rely on the generated next version info.

• the release will only be performed if a semantic release is present
• the version is passed to the Maven Release plugin as the release version argument adding -DreleaseVersion=${SEMREL_INFO_NEXT_VERSION} to the MAVEN_RELEASE_ARGS value

⚠️ Both the Maven Release plugin and semantic-release template use a dedicated tag format that need to be set accordingly. By default, the Maven Release plugin uses ${artifactId}-${version} and semantic-release uses ${version} For exemple you can modify the semantic-release tag format with the SEMREL_TAG_FORMAT variable (see semantic-release template variables).

ℹ️ semantic-release determines the next release version from the existing tags in the Git repository. As the default semantic-release tag format (${version}) is not the Maven default, if leaving defaults, semantic-release will always determine the next version to release as 1.0.0, trying to keep overwriting the same version. In addition to the functional problem, this might result in a release failure as soon as trying to release version 1.0.0 for the second time (as Maven repos configured as "release" repos will not permit overwriting). Simply set SEMREL_TAG_FORMAT as shown below to have the semantic-release tag format match the maven release plugin one.

variables:
  # double dollar to prevent evaluation (escape char)
  SEMREL_TAG_FORMAT: "myArtifactId-$${version}"

Or you can override the maven release plugin tag format.

Note: It is the mvn-release job that will perform the release and so you only need the semantic-release-info job. Set the SEMREL_RELEASE_DISABLED variable as shown below.

variables:
  SEMREL_RELEASE_DISABLED: "true"

Finally, the semantic-release integration can be disabled with the MVN_SEMREL_RELEASE_DISABLED variable.

Maven repository authentication

Your Maven repository may require authentication credentials to publish artifacts.

You may handle them in the following ways:

1. define all required credentials as 🔒 project variables,
2. make sure your pom.xml (or ancestor) declares your <repository> and <snapshotRepository> with server ids in a <distributionManagement> section,
3. in your ${MAVEN_CFG_DIR}/settings.xml file, define the repository servers credentials in the <servers> section using the ${env.VARIABLE} pattern—will be automatically evaluated and replaced by Maven.

Example 1 — using the GitLab Maven Repository

pom.xml:

<!-- ... -->
<distributionManagement>
  <snapshotRepository>
      <id>gitlab-maven</id>
      <url>${env.CI_API_V4_URL}/projects/${env.CI_PROJECT_ID}/packages/maven</url>
  </snapshotRepository>
  <repository>
      <id>gitlab-maven</id>
      <url>${env.CI_API_V4_URL}/projects/${env.CI_PROJECT_ID}/packages/maven</url>
  </repository>
</distributionManagement>
<!-- ... -->

${MAVEN_SETTINGS_FILE}:

<settings>
  <servers>
    <!-- required when using GitLab's package registry to deploy -->
    <!-- see: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/packages/maven_repository/index.html#use-the-gitlab-endpoint-for-maven-packages -->
    <server>
        <id>gitlab-maven</id>
        <configuration>
            <httpHeaders>
                <property>
                    <name>Job-Token</name>
                    <value>${env.CI_JOB_TOKEN}</value>
                </property>
            </httpHeaders>
        </configuration>
    </server>
  </servers>
</settings>

Example 2 — using an Artifactory repository with same credentials for snapshot & release

pom.xml:

<!--... -->
<distributionManagement>
  <snapshotRepository>
    <id>artifactory</id>
    <url>https://artifactory.acme.host/artifactory/maven-snapshot-repo</url>
  </snapshotRepository>
  <repository>
    <id>artifactory</id>
    <url>https://artifactory.acme.host/artifactory/maven-release-repo</url>
  </repository>
</distributionManagement>
<!--...-->

${MAVEN_CFG_DIR}/settings.xml:

<settings>
  <servers>
    <server>
      <id>artifactory</id>
      <username>${env.ARTIFACTORY_USER}</username>
      <password>${env.ARTIFACTORY_PASSWORD}</password>
    </server>
  </servers>
  <mirrors>
    <mirror>
      <id>artifactory.mirror</id>
      <mirrorOf>central</mirrorOf>
      <name>Artifactory Maven 2 central repository mirror</name>
      <url>https://artifactory.acme.host/artifactory/maven-virtual-repo/</url>
    </mirror>
  </mirrors>
</settings>

SCM authentication

A Maven release involves some Git push operations.

You can either use an ssh key or an authenticated and authorized Git user.

Using an SSH key

We recommend you to use a project deploy key with write access to your project.

The key should not have a passphrase (see how to generate a new SSH key pair).

Specify 🔒 $GIT_PRIVATE_KEY as protected project variable with the private part of the deploy key.

-----BEGIN 0PENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----
blablabla
-----END OPENSSH PRIVATE KEY-----

The template handles both classic variable and file variable.

⚠️ The scm connections in your pom.xml should use the ssh protocol

  <scm>
    <connection>scm:git:git@gitlab-host/path/to/my/project.git</connection>
    <developerConnection>scm:git:git@gitlab-host/path/to/my/project.git</developerConnection>
    ...
  </scm>

Using Git user authentication

Simply specify 🔒 $GIT_USERNAME and 🔒 $GIT_PASSWORD as protected project variables and they will be dynamically evaluated and appended to the Maven release arguments.

Note that the password should be an access token with write_repository scope and Maintainer role.

⚠️ The scm connections in your pom.xml should use the https protocol

  <scm>
    <connection>scm:git:https://gitlab-host/path/to/my/project.git</connection>
    <developerConnection>scm:git:https://gitlab-host/path/to/my/project.git</developerConnection>
    ...
  </scm>