How to configure maven settings.xml to access nexus behind an apache proxy

Question

I'm having trouble with getting artifacts from nexus and I hope that the community can help me out. It is not a problem to access and work in the nexus web application (I've set the Base URL to https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus).

All calls to https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus is redirected / forwarded / proxied (what's the correct terminology?) to an internal server on the network

<VirtualHost *:443>
  ServerName www.fakesitename.com
  ServerAdmin [email protected]

  DocumentRoot /var/www
  <Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride None
  </Directory>

  ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/error.log
  LogLevel warn
  CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/access.log combined

  <Proxy *>
    AddDefaultCharset Off
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
  </Proxy>

  ProxyRequests Off
  ProxyPreserveHost On

  ProxyPass /nexus http://192.168.0.178:8081/nexus
  ProxyPassReverse /nexus http://192.168.0.178:8081/nexus

  SSLEngine on
  SSLCertificateFile /certs/mysite/ssl.crt
  SSLCertificateKeyFile /certs/mysite/ssl.key
</VirtualHost>

The settings.xml file:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0"
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0
          http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">
  <mirrors>
    <mirror>
      <id>public</id>
      <mirrorOf>*</mirrorOf>
      <url>https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
    </mirror>
  </mirrors>

<!-- What should be in here?
  <proxies>
    <proxy>
      <id>myproxy</id>
      <active>true</active>
      <protocol>https</protocol>
      <host>www.fakesitename.com</host>
      <port>443</port>
      <nonProxyHosts>127.0.0.1|192.168.0.178</nonProxyHosts>
    </proxy>
  </proxies>
-->
  <servers>
    <server>
      <id>releases</id>
      <username>deployment</username>
      <password>deployment123</password>
    </server>
    <server>
      <id>snapshots</id>
      <username>deployment</username>
      <password>deployment123</password>
    </server>
  </servers>
  <profiles>
    <profile>
      <id>nexus</id>
      <repositories>
        <repository>
          <id>central</id>
          <url>https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
          <releases><enabled>true</enabled></releases>
          <snapshots><enabled>true</enabled></snapshots>
        </repository>
      </repositories>
      <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
          <id>central</id>
          <url>https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public</url>
          <releases><enabled>true</enabled></releases>
          <snapshots><enabled>true</enabled></snapshots>
        </pluginRepository>
      </pluginRepositories>
    </profile>
  </profiles>
  <activeProfiles>
    <activeProfile>nexus</activeProfile>
  </activeProfiles>
</settings>

When I run for instance mvn clean of a project with the proxies section outcommented I get ...peer not authenticated...

 [INFO] Scanning for projects...
 Downloading: https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public/com/fakesitename/poms/super/1.3/super-1.3.pom
[ERROR] The build could not read 1 project -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]   
[ERROR]   The project com.fakesitename.library:application:1.3-SNAPSHOT (/tmp/application/pom.xml) has 1 error
[ERROR]     Non-resolvable parent POM: Could not transfer artifact com.fakesitename.poms:super:pom:1.3 from/to public (https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public): peer not authenticated and 'parent.relativePath' points at wrong local POM @ line 5, column 11 -> [Help 2]
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/ProjectBuildingException
[ERROR] [Help 2] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/UnresolvableModelException

j

and with the section not outcommented

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
Downloading: https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public/com/fakesitename/poms/super/1.3/super-1.3.pom
mar 24, 2013 10:12:39 EM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector tryConnect
INFO: I/O exception (org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.NoHttpResponseException) caught when connecting to the target host: The target server failed to respond
mar 24, 2013 10:12:39 EM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector tryConnect
INFO: Retrying connect
mar 24, 2013 10:12:39 EM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector tryConnect
INFO: I/O exception (org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.NoHttpResponseException) caught when connecting to the target host: The target server failed to respond
mar 24, 2013 10:12:39 EM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector tryConnect
INFO: Retrying connect
mar 24, 2013 10:12:39 EM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector tryConnect
INFO: I/O exception (org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.NoHttpResponseException) caught when connecting to the target host: The target server failed to respond
mar 24, 2013 10:12:39 EM org.apache.maven.wagon.providers.http.httpclient.impl.client.DefaultRequestDirector tryConnect
INFO: Retrying connect
[ERROR] The build could not read 1 project -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]   
[ERROR]   The project com.fakesitename.library:application:1.3-SNAPSHOT (/tmp/application/pom.xml) has 1 error
[ERROR]     Non-resolvable parent POM: Could not transfer artifact com.fakesitename.poms:super:pom:1.3 from/to public (https://www.fakesitename.com/nexus/content/groups/public): The target server failed to respond and 'parent.relativePath' points at wrong local POM @ line 5, column 11 -> [Help 2]
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/ProjectBuildingException
[ERROR] [Help 2] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/UnresolvableModelException

If I change the settings file to use http://192.168.0.178:8081 directly, it succeeds.

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
Downloading: http://192.168.0.178:8081/nexus/content/groups/public/com/fakesitename/poms/super/1.3/super-1.3.pom
Downloaded: http://192.168.0.178:8081/nexus/content/groups/public/com/fakesitename/poms/super/1.3/super-1.3.pom (33 KB at 157.3 KB/sec)
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Reactor Build Order:
[INFO] 
...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD SUCCESS
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 1.243s
[INFO] Finished at: Sun Mar 24 22:22:01 CET 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 6M/17M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, I really don't know what to do. I want to be able to use the "official" https address in the settings.xml file

Solution

"peer not authenticated" usually means the SSL certificate presented by the server is not signed by an authority the client JRE knows about (e.g. self-signed).

If that is the case, you need to import the CA certificate into the JRE's trust store (or override it with your own).