Maven assembly plugin warning "The assembly descriptor contains a filesystem-root relative reference"

Question

Starting from some assembly plugin version maven builds issue the following warning:

[WARNING] The assembly descriptor contains a filesystem-root relative reference,which is not cross platform compatible /

Is there any recommended ready-to-use solution for this? Direct googling provided me with lot of trash and no real help. Re-check of Maven assembly plugin help did not provide answer for me, maybe someone else has better search skill and can help.

UPDATE

Yes, this is probably because of Linux-like outputDirectory but how should I rewrite this to be portable? Looked at assembly plugin documentation and not found any portability guide.

<fileSets>
    <fileSet>
        <directory>${basedir}/src/main/resources</directory>
        <outputDirectory>/</outputDirectory>
    </fileSet>
</fileSets>

Can you show the assembly descriptor? It will probably show that somehow you reference an absolute path (_/a/b/c_), which is something to avoid to ensure build portability across environments — Tome, Feb 13 '15 at 13:29
Yes this is the case if you are creating a tar file which can't contain a filesystem-root entry...which btw. does not really make sense. — khmarbaise, Feb 13 '15 at 13:29
As you can see the outputDirectory defines a `/` which would in consequence mean to extract all contens to always same location. Apart from that this location is limited to the root account. Furthermore the questions is why you use `fileSets` to get the `src/main/resources` folder? Special reason for that? — khmarbaise, Feb 13 '15 at 18:16
Yes, this is resulting .tar.gz assembly so "/" has nothing to root account and `src/main/resources` does not go into resulting artifact JAR but goes to .tar.gz package which includes needed additional things like scripts. I just have never tried to not provide anything through ``. So @Torsten answer suits me 100%. — Roman Nikitchenko, Feb 13 '15 at 23:33
Had to scratch that itch a few days ago so I thought I might as well share it. Glad I could help. — Torsten, Feb 14 '15 at 22:34

score 69 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '15 at 18:24

69

The working solution is to specify the empty outputDirectory:

<fileSets>
    <fileSet>
        <directory>${basedir}/src/main/resources</directory>
        <outputDirectory></outputDirectory>
    </fileSet>
</fileSets>

answered Feb 13 '15 at 18:24

Torsten

6,184
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2

It is not always desirable to just leave it empty, what should be done if it needs to be set ? – Prashant Sharma Nov 19 '15 at 06:16
5

If you like to specify a directory here then do so - this is why this parameter is here anyway. Just avoid absolute paths starting with "/". – Torsten Nov 20 '15 at 09:49
2

Or self-closing `` – naXa stands with Ukraine Apr 04 '16 at 08:39
2

Another option: use `.` instead of `/`, i.e.: `.`. – otterrisk Nov 06 '18 at 11:03
@PrashantSharma See other answer using ${file.separator} – Craigo Jun 18 '21 at 01:51

score 48 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 29 '16 at 09:48

48

Using an empty outputDirectory element works, but I wouldn't be surprised if somebody assumed it could be safely deleted.

So, to be more explicit, you could also avoid the warning by writing:

<outputDirectory>${file.separator}</outputDirectory>

answered Apr 29 '16 at 09:48

patforna

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IMO this is the best approach as it works for any path not only / but also /foo/bar – Nicolas Filotto May 13 '16 at 10:04
1

Could you please elaborate how I would specify the file.separator property to work for both *nix platforms and windows platform? – vivekmore Aug 28 '17 at 17:31
3

@vivekmore the property is provided by maven and DOES work for both nix & windows – Barett Mar 13 '18 at 22:00
patforna, have you actually tried this "more explicit" part on a windows system? I don't think it actually gets rid of the warning... I think Maven is complaining about the setting starting with any slash at all. I could be wrong. – Barett Mar 13 '18 at 22:04
@Barett only tested this on *nix. – patforna Mar 15 '18 at 08:23
confirm works on windows too, earned you an upvote! – escape-llc Jan 08 '20 at 10:53

score 8 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 20 '17 at 01:24

Note that this can happen at other locations besides just /. The above answers are correct, but don't cover this case.

Look for something like this in your assembly.xml:

<fileSets>
    <fileSet>
        <directory>${basedir}/src/main/resources</directory>
        <outputDirectory>/lib</outputDirectory>         <!-- <<< look for this -->
    </fileSet>
</fileSets>

and change to this:

<fileSets>
    <fileSet>
        <directory>${basedir}/src/main/resources</directory>
        <outputDirectory>lib</outputDirectory>
    </fileSet>
</fileSets>

Maven assembly plugin warning "The assembly descriptor contains a filesystem-root relative reference"

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