src/site/markdown/usage.md.vm

---
title: Usage
author: 
  - Stephane Nicoll
  - snicoll@apache.org
  - Pete Marvin King
date: 2012-02-01
---

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# Usage

The EJB Plugin is used to package an EJB module. There are two ways to use the EJB Plugin:

- If the packaging type defined in the `pom.xml` is `ejb`, the `package` lifecycle phase can be used

    ```
    mvn package
    ```

- or using the `ejb:ejb` goal

    ```
    mvn ejb:ejb
    ```

To handle archiving this version of Maven EJB Plugin uses [Maven Archiver](/shared/maven-archiver/index.html) ${mavenArchiverVersion}.

To handle filtering this version of Maven EJB Plugin uses [Maven Filtering](/shared/maven-filtering/index.html) ${mavenFilteringVersion}.

The plugin doesn't do any EJB specific processing during the generation of the JAR except for validating the existence of an EJB deployment descriptor if the EJB version is 2.0+, but it provides the following customization:

- The EJB version to use
- [Generating and customizing an ejb-client](./examples/generating-ejb-client.html)

    **Note:** The dependencies will not be package with the EJB JAR.

Specifying the EJB version to use
---------------------------------

The plugin generates according to the EJB version specified by the [`ejbVersion`](./ejb-mojo.html#ejbVersion) parameter. To use some other version than the default, configure the plugin as in the example below:

```xml
  <build>
    <pluginManagement>
      <plugins>
        <plugin>
          <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
          <artifactId>maven-ejb-plugin</artifactId>
          <version>${project.version}</version>
          <configuration>
            <ejbVersion>3.0</ejbVersion>
          </configuration>
        </plugin>
      </plugins>
    </pluginManagement>
  </build>
```