The Apache Maven team is pleased to announce the release of the Apache Maven WAR Plugin, version 3.1.0. The WAR Plugin is responsible for collecting all artifact dependencies, classes and resources of the web application and packaging them into a web application archive. http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-war-plugin/ You should specify the version in your project's plugin configuration: <plugin> <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId> <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId> <version>3.1.0</version> </plugin> You can download the appropriate sources etc. from the download page: https://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-war-plugin/download.cgi Important Note: * Maven 3.X only * JDK 6 minimum requirement Release Notes - Maven WAR Plugin - Version 3.1.0 https://issues.apache.org/jira/secure/ReleaseNote.jspa?projectId=12318121&version=12338167 Bugs: * [MWAR-257] - Restore dependentWarExcludes/Includes since there is no alternative on global level * [MWAR-398] - Upgrade of plexus-interpolation to 1.24 to correct escaping issue. * [MWAR-400] - Upgrade the WAR lifecycle to use the maven-resources-plugin 3.0.2 * [MWAR-404] - <filteringDeploymentDescriptors>true</> is not honored * [MWAR-405] - Workaround XStream incompatibility with Java9 New Feature: * [MWAR-396] - Check the existence of the web.xml based on the existence of particular classes Enjoy, -The Apache Maven team