Maven needs to access the Internet to download a number of things including POM files and dependent JAR files that are not held in your local repository. If you are trying to do this from behind a corportate firewall then you’ll need to configure Maven to work around it or you’ll get a load of error messages when it runs.

First you’ll need to find out your network’s HTTP proxy settings. You could ask a network administrator, or just look in your Internet browser settings and figure it out for yourself.

Once you’ve got the details of the proxy, edit Maven’s conf/settings.xml file and enter the proxy details in the proxy element:

<proxy>
    <id>optional</id>
    <active>true</active>
    <protocol>http</protocol>
    <username>proxyuser</username>
    <password>proxypassword</password>
    <host>webproxy.smartkey.co.uk</host>
    <port>8080</port>
    <nonProxyHosts></nonProxyHosts>
</proxy>

Save the changes in this file and try launching Maven again. If it still doesn’t play ball, check the settings with your network admin, make sure that the above XML is uncommented (it’ll be commented in the file that ships with Maven) and try again.