Add documentation

[helpermethod]

• Usage
• Features
• Authentication

[pwhittlesea]

Hi @helpermethod

I'm looking to help out (time permitting) as this is something I would be interested in using.

Has any start been made on this?

Do you mean code docs or are you looking at creating online documentation similar to other Maven projects? (example)

[helpermethod]

Hi @pwhittlesea,

I'm currently a little busy with other things but will get back to the project within the next few days.

Help in any form is always welcome :)!

The doc is currently extremely lacking (basically non-existent), especially with regards to:

• Which types of authentication are supported?
• Which steps need to be taken to let the plugin authenticate via SSH, Authentication Tokens or Username Password?

A static site (like other Maven plugins have) which describes its goals (currently only update), basic usage etc. would also be welcome.

[pwhittlesea]

So from what I can currently gather the plug-in has 1 property which can be set:

• connectionType - To choose between connectionUrl and developerConnectionUrl

Both the connectionUrl and developerConnectionUrl are read from the pom.xml and Maven settings in the settings.xml file will be used to configure the authentication settings to those URLs.

Is this correct?

[helpermethod]

This this correct except one minor detail:

If the connection contains a username/password pair then that will be used for authentication.

This is to allow authentication via Personal Access Tokens which GitLab requires to be part of the URL.

For a deep dive into JGit Auth I'd recommend JGit Authentication Explained.

[pwhittlesea]

So if we were using this plug-in in GitLab CI/CD we would have a .gitlab-ci.yaml with:

mvn dependency-update-maven-plugin:update \
    -DconnectionUrl=$CI_REPOSITORY_URL?private_token=$MY_PERSONAL_TOKEN

Where:

• the URL is from $CI_REPOSITORY_URL
• $MY_PERSONAL_TOKEN is set in the CI/CD variables

[bmarwell]

There's now a help mojo for a start: #61
Site generation is also in a PR and already merged: #51