How to Install Apache Maven on Ubuntu 20.04

Apache Maven is a very useful open-source project management tool based on POM (project object model). Primarily, it is used to manage Java projects and manage a project’s build, reporting, and documentation. This tutorial show you how to install and configure Apache Maven on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Prerequisites#

Make sure you are logged in as root or user with sudo privileges.

Installing Apache Maven on Ubuntu 20.04 with apt#

The official Ubuntu repositories contain Maven packages that can be installed with the apt package manager.

Maven packages included in the official Ubuntu repositories but the version may be older than the latest version of Maven. It is very a simple and straightforward process to install Maven on Ubuntu.

At first, update the package index:

sudo apt update

Run the below command install Maven:

sudo apt install maven

Verify the installation by typing:

mvn -version

It will show you something like this:

Apache Maven 3.6.3
Maven home: /usr/share/maven
Java version: 11.0.7, vendor: Ubuntu, runtime: /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "5.4.0-26-generic", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

It’s done. Maven is installed on your system, and ready to start using it.

Installing the Latest Release of Apache Maven#

Perform the following steps to download and install the latest version of Apache Maven on Ubuntu 20.04.

1. Install OpenJDK#

JDK 1.7 or above need to be installed for Maven 3.3+ version. To install OpenJDK 11, type:

sudo apt update

sudo apt install default-jdk

Verify the installation by running the following command:

java -version

It should show output like below:

openjdk version "11.0.7" 2020-04-14
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.7+10-post-Ubuntu-3ubuntu1)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.7+10-post-Ubuntu-3ubuntu1, mixed mode, sharing)

2. Downloading Apache Maven#

Visit the Maven download page to see the latest version of Maven. Currently, at the time of writing this article, the latest version of Apache Maven is 3.6.3.

We will download the Apache Maven in the /tmp directory:

wget https://www-us.apache.org/dist/maven/maven-3/3.6.3/binaries/apache-maven-3.6.3-bin.tar.gz -P /tmp

After complete the download, extract the archive in the /opt directory:

sudo tar xf /tmp/apache-maven-*.tar.gz -C /opt

To control the Maven versions and updates, create a symbolic link for maven that will point to the Maven installation directory:

sudo ln -s /opt/apache-maven-3.6.3 /opt/maven

To upgrade your Maven installation, unpack the newer version and change the symlink and point to it.

3. Setup environment variables#

Now we will set up environment variables, to do so open your text editor and create a new file named mavenenv.sh in the /etc/profile.d/ directory.

sudo nano /etc/profile.d/maven.sh

Put the following following code lines in to it:

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

Save and close the file.

We should make this script executable using chmod command:

sudo chmod +x /etc/profile.d/maven.sh

At last, load the environment variables using the source command:

source /etc/profile.d/maven.sh

4. Verify the installation#

To verify the installation, use the mvn -version command to check the Maven version:

mvn -version

It should print like the following:

Maven home: /opt/maven
Java version: 11.0.7, vendor: Ubuntu, runtime: /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "5.4.0-26-generic", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

It’s done. The latest version of Maven is now installed on your Ubuntu system.

Conclusion#

You have learned how to install Apache Maven on Ubuntu 20.04. To learn more about Apache Maven visit the official Apache Maven Documentation page.

If you have any question or feedback, don’t hesitate to leave a comment below.