Maven can't find web.xml

Question

I'm getting the following error when building my maven-project with the command mvn clean install

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-war-plugin:2.2:war (default-war) on project MyProject: Error assembling WAR: webxml attribute is required (or pre-existing WEB-INF/web.xml if executing in update mode)

I do have web.xml in the project. In the folder web/WEB-INF/web.xml

I am using IntelliJ IDEA. I can avoid this problem by adding the following to pom.xml:

<build> <plugins> <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId> <configuration> <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml> </configuration> </plugin> </plugins> </build>

But I'd like to know why maven claims that web.xml is missing even though it's not and it is in the default location when creating a new web application project in IntelliJ IDEA.

The path web/WEB-INF/web.xml is not the default because there shouldn't be a web dir between WEB-INF/web.xml and the project root dir unless the project root dir is named 'web'. — Humberto Pinheiro
– Humberto Pinheiro, Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:13
Moved WEB-INF out of web-folder to project root and still getting the same error. — Steve Waters
– Steve Waters, Commented Apr 19, 2016 at 19:22

mikeb · Accepted Answer · 2017-04-12 14:04:37Z

12

Your problem is that you have web.xml in this path: web/WEB-INF/web.xml

With Maven, the web.xml should go in src/main/webapp/WEB-INF or you should change the webXml configuration of the war plugin (see here: https://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-war-plugin/war-mojo.html#webXml)

answered Apr 12, 2017 at 14:04

mikeb

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2 Comments

kevr Over a year ago

In my case, I actually have web.xml in ./src/main/webapp/WEB-INF, but it doesn't run properly with mvn jetty:run, I'm not really sure why, it always says it that the directory doesn't exist.

mikeb Over a year ago

Post your full pom file. You have it in the right place unless you're overriding something

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