Maven repositories are physical directories which contain packaged JAR files along with extra meta data about these jar files. This meta data is in form of POM files which have jar file project information, including what other external dependencies this JAR file has. These other external dependencies are downloaded transitively into your project and become part of effective pom for the project.
Local repository
Maven local repository reside in the developer’s machine. Whenever you run maven goals which require these dependencies, maven will download the dependencies from remote servers and store them into developer’s machine.
By default, Maven create the local repository inside user home directory i.e.
C:/Users/superdev/.m2directory. You can change the location of the local repository in setting.xml file using localRepositorytag.<settings> <localRepository> C:\M2 </localRepository></settings> |
Having stored the dependencies into local machine has two main benefits. First, multiple projects can access same artifact so it reduces the storage need. Second, as dependency is downloaded only once, it reduces the network usage as well.
Central repository
Maven central repository is located at http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/. Whenever you run build job, maven first try to find dependency from local repository. If it is not there, then, by default, maven will trigger the download from this central repository location.
To override this default location, you can can make changes to your
settings.xml file to use one or more mirrors.
You do not need to make any special configuration to allow access the central repository, except network proxy settings if you are behind any firewall.
Remote repository
Apart from central repository, you may have needed artifacts deployed on other remote locations. For example, in your corporate office there may be projects or modules specific to organization only. In this cases, organization can create remote repository and deploy these private artifacts. This remote repository will be accessible only inside organization.
These maven remote repository work exactly same way as maven’s central repository. Whenever an artifact is needed from these repositories, it is first downloaded to developer’s local repository and then it is used.
You can configure a remote repository in the POM file or super POM file in remote repository itself.
<repositories> <repository> <id>org.source.repo</id> </repository></repositories> |
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