How does Maven 3 password encryption work?

Question

I\'m trying to understand Maven 3\'s[password encryption feature. I have found that this feature is poorly documented and confusing. For example, the feature documentation and a

Answer 1

Here is example code which shows how to decrypt the maven master password from

~/.m2/security-settings.xml

and also the server passwords from

~/.m2/settings.xml

Source of MavenPasswordDecryptor.java

import org.sonatype.plexus.components.cipher.DefaultPlexusCipher;

public class MavenPasswordDecryptor {
    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        if (args.length < 1 || args.length > 2 ) {
            System.out.println("Usage: java -jar maven-password-decryptor.jar ");
            System.out.println("Usage: java -jar maven-password-decryptor.jar  ");
            return;
        }

        DefaultPlexusCipher cipher = new DefaultPlexusCipher();

        String encryptedPassword = args[0];
        String passPhrase = (args.length == 2 && args[1] != null && !args[1].isEmpty()) ? args[1] : "settings.security";

        String result = cipher.decryptDecorated(encryptedPassword, passPhrase);

        System.out.println(result);
    }
}

There is also an example project on GitHub:

https://github.com/uweguenther/maven-password-decryptor