This Plugin is a collection of several Debian Packaging tasks. Currently it offers the following goals:
This plugin depends on the presence of chmod, dpkg, and fakeroot. Consequently, it is a Debian (or Debian variant) specific plugin as it relies on fakeroot being avaiable on the PATH.
From Wikipedia: "Debian packages are standard Unix archives that include two gzipped or bzipped tar archives: one that holds the control information and another that contains the data."
You can currently create a simple DEB package using the "deb" goal on a project that produces a JAR file. This DEB file produced by this plugin will deposit JAR files and (optionally) JavaDoc in a directory structure consistent with the few Java libraries currently distributed by the Debian team. For more information about this stright-forward use case see Generating DEB Packages.
Alternatively, you can use the Maven DEB plugin to produce any DEB package with an arbitrary structure by using the package-binary goal with the assembly plugin. The package-binary plugin will take any directory containing a file system and turn it into a DEB file. The assembly plugin allows you to create a distribution format of arbitrary structure in an unpacked directory. To use the DEB plugin in this way, you will need to associate the directory goal of the assemby plugin with the package phase of the lifecycle and follow this with a call to the package-binary goal of the DEB plugin.
This DEB Plugin does not automatically generate supporting files other than the control file. The developers of this plugin are currently working on the following features for a full release:
