In this tutorial, we will show you how to install Apache Maven 3 on Ubuntu 16.04 VPS. Apache Maven is a free and open source project management software written in Java. Based on the concept of the Project Model Object (POM), Maven can manage all the projects it builds. With Maven, you can easily store documents, generate reports and documentation from a central piece of information. Installing Maven on Ubuntu 16.04 is a fairly simple task and shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes.

Some of the main Maven 3 features are listed below:

• Easy project setup
• Plugin extension points
• Maven wrapper
• Consistent use of all projects
• Builder model
• Automatic versioning barent
• Dependency management
• Parallel assemblies
• and much more ..

1. Login with SSH

First of all, login to your Ubuntu 16.04 VPS via SSH as superuser

ssh [email protected]_Address -p Port_number

2. Updating OS packages

Update all installed packages to the latest version

apt-get update && apt-get upgrage

3. Check your Maven version

Installing Apache Maven is a very simple process. It is available in the official Ubuntu 16.04 repository. You can check the exact version by running the following command

apt-cache show maven | grep Version
Version: 3.3.9-3

4. Install Maven from the official repository

Version 3.3.9 is currently installed. Please note that the latest available Apache Maven version is currently 3.5.2 and this is the recommended option for all users.

To proceed with the installation, run the following command

apt-get -y install maven

This will install the latest version of Maven 3 available in the repository among all Maven dependencies, including Java.

After the installation is complete, you can check if Maven has been successfully installed on your Ubuntu 16.04 server by using the following command

mvn --version

The result should be similar to

Apache Maven 3.3.9
Maven home: /usr/share/maven
Java version: 1.8.0_151, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: ANSI_X3.4-1968
OS name: "linux", version: "2.6.32-042stab127.2", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

5. Installation Guide

As we mentioned, 3.3.9 is not the latest version of Maven. If you want to install the latest version, you can download it from the Maven official website. First of all, we need to install Java on the server. It is not available in the official Ubuntu 16.04 repository, so we will add the PPA repository maintained by the Webupd8 team

apt-get install software-properties-common
apt-add-repository ppa:webupd8team/java
apt-get update

6. Installing Java

Then install Java 8 using the following command

apt-get install oracle-java8-installer

To check if the installation is correct, run

java -version

java version "1.8.0_121"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_121-b13)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.121-b13, mixed mode)

7. Download the latest version of Maven

Download the latest stable version of Maven

wget https://ftp.wayne.edu/apache/maven/maven-3/3.5.2/binaries/apache-maven-3.5.2-bin.zip

After downloading, unzip the archive

unzip apache-maven-3.5.2-bin.zip

8. Configuring Maven

Rename the created directory to something simpler

mv apache-maven-3.5.2 maven

Set the required environment variables, create a new file with the following content

nano /etc/profile.d/maven.sh

export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle
export M2_HOME=/opt/maven
export MAVEN_HOME=/opt/maven
export PATH=${M2_HOME}/bin:${PATH}

Make sure all paths are correct.

Run the following command to load environment variables

source /etc/profile.d/maven.sh

9. Verifying Maven Installation

And finally make sure Maven is installed correctly

mvn -version