Maven won't use public key to deploy

Question

I'm using SSH to deploy my Java artifacts to a server. I have the keys set up so that I can interactively SSH to the server without requiring a password, but when I try to run the " mvn deploy " or " mvn release:perform " commands, it hangs (at what I assume is the password prompt).

My ~/.m2/settings.xml file contains the username for the server (because it is different than my local username) and references the id of the server that requires the different user.

Answer 1

Are you sure your settings.xml provides everything required? Did you declare your privateKey (and the passphrase if necessary)? Something like this:

<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
  xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
  xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
                      http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
  ...
  <servers>
    <server>
      <id>server001</id>
      <username>my_login</username>
      <privateKey>${user.home}/.ssh/id_dsa</privateKey>
      <passphrase>some_passphrase</passphrase> <!-- if required -->
      <filePermissions>664</filePermissions>
      <directoryPermissions>775</directoryPermissions>
      <configuration></configuration>
    </server>
  </servers>
  ...
</settings>

Answer 2

In your distributionManagement section, try using "scpexe://" in your url instead of "scp://".

This calls the standard scp program (assuming it is on your path), instead of using the Java implementation of scp that is built into Maven. Standard scp uses ssh-agent (which, in Ubuntu, starts automatically when you log in through GDM) for public-key auth.