Spring boot test multi module maven application

Question

I have a multi-module maven application which uses Spring boot:

- spring boot parent
    - myproject parent (both parent and module pom)
        - module1
        - module2
        - module-it (integration tests)

In my module-it, I add the other modules as dependencies.

When I build my project with maven, I get "Build Success":

mvn clean install

So far so good.
Yet I would like each of my modules to be an executable jar at the end of the build. With the above settings, the manifest is not defined and the jar is not executable. To fix this issue, I've added the following in my module1 and module2 pom files:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>

With this setting, my jar file is executable but I cannot build anymore. Classes that I use in my module-it are not found.

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:testCompile (default-testCompile) on project module-it: Compilation failure: Compilation failure:
[ERROR] /home/user/<path-to-project>/testing/module-it/src/test/java/com/mycompany/testing/greeting/GreetingControllerIT.java:[20,17] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol:   class GreetingController
[ERROR] location: class com.mycompany.testing.greeting.GreetingControllerIT
[ERROR] /home/user/<path-to-project>/testing/module-it/src/test/java/com/mycompany/testing/hello/HelloControllerIT.java:[20,17] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol:   class HelloController
[ERROR] location: class com.mycompany.testing.hello.HelloControllerIT
[ERROR] /home/user/<path-to-project>/testing/module-it/src/test/java/com/mycompany/testing/greeting/GreetingControllerIT.java:[16,27] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol: class GreetingController
[ERROR] /home/user/<path-to-project>/testing/module-it/src/test/java/com/mycompany/testing/hello/HelloControllerIT.java:[16,27] cannot find symbol
[ERROR] symbol: class HelloController

Can you please help me understand why spring-boot-maven-plugin makes my build fail and how I can solve the issue?

Thanks in advance for your help.

Answer 1

To solve this issue, we can add a classifier as described in the documentation custom repackage classifier

The plugin then becomes:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <goals>
                <goal>repackage</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <classifier>exec</classifier>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>