What are maven plugins?

• Maven plugin is an execution framework to execute specific set of goals like

Maven core plugins:

1. clean : Clean up after the build.
2. install : Install the built artifact into the local repository.
3. deploy : Deploy the built artifact to the remote repository.
4. compiler : Compiles Java sources.
5. resources : Copy the resources to the output directory for including in the JAR.
6. surefire : Run the JUnit unit tests in an isolated classloader.

Maven tools:

1. jar - create jar file
2. war- create war file
3. ejb - create ejb from current project
4. ear - create ear from current project 
5. rar - create rar from current project
6. archetype - generate a skeleton project structure from an archetype.
7. dependency - dependency manipulation (copy, unpack) and analysis.

• There are two type of maven plugins.

1. Build plugins will be executed during the build and they should be configured in the <build/> element from the POM.
2. Reporting plugins will be executed during the site generation and they should be configured in the <reporting/> element from the POM.