Apache Maven Distribution Tool

Maven Distribution Tool is a tool executed daily on Maven CI server to produce a report of the different checks done on our releases.

Quick Build

mvn verify site

Configuration

API_TOKEN

The API_TOKEN environment variable is required to authenticate HTTP requests against the Apache Jenkins instance and other Apache infrastructure. It is a Base64-encoded username:apitoken string used for HTTP Basic Authentication.

Generating the Token

1. Log in to the Apache Jenkins instance.
2. Click your username in the top-right corner to open your user profile.
3. Navigate to Security (or go directly to https://ci-maven.apache.org/user/<your-username>/security/).
4. Under API Token, click Add new Token, give it a name, and click Generate.
5. Copy the generated token — it will not be shown again.

Setting the Environment Variable

Base64-encode your Jenkins username and API token, then export it:

export API_TOKEN=$(echo -n 'your-username:your-api-token' | base64)

You can add this to your shell profile (~/.bashrc, ~/.zshrc, etc.) for persistence.

Usage

• Local build with site reports: mvn verify site — the reports use API_TOKEN to fetch data from Jenkins.
• Integration tests: mvn failsafe:integration-test — the token is passed to the failsafe plugin via the API_TOKEN environment variable.
• CI (Jenkins): The token is automatically injected via the withCredentials binding in the Jenkinsfile using the API_TOKEN credential ID.