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Limit downloading of maven dependencies when version in open end range

I have a multi module maven project with a parent POM which defines a few common dependencies as part of the dependency management as follows:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.example</groupId>
<artifactId>example-commons-core</artifactId>
<version>(1.2,)</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.example</groupId>
<artifactId>example-commons-logging</artifactId>
<version>(1.3,)</version>
</dependency>
I have added this version format to avoid permanently update versions in the POM, when a new version of the core library is created.
My problem is that by each maven build, maven will check up all repositories for new version for each dependency I got following log entries:
Downloading from snapshots: https://example.com/repository/snapshots/com.example/example-commons-core/maven-metadata.xml
Downloading from release: https://example.com/repository/release/com.example/example-commons-core/maven-metadata.xml
Downloading from 3rdparty: https://example.com/repository/3rdparty/com.example/example-commons-core/maven-metadata.xml
Downloading from central: https://repo1.maven.org/maven2/com.example/example-commons-core/maven-metadata.xml
My question is can I do the checks for example monthly?
How to avoid that maven tries to check my own dependencies on maven central repository?

The modern way to solve the problem is to avoid version ranges but use the versions maven plugin (like versions:use-latest-releases).

GitLab AutoDevops with Oracle artifacts

I've set up a GitLab project that uses Oracle JDBC. The Oracle driver is not in Maven Central Repository, so I've added it on my project manually. That means that, locally, my builds run just fine.
The catch: I want to use GitLab's devops feature. However, my project won't build on GitLab because of this dependency issue, giving me the following error on maven build:
Could not find artifact com.oracle:ojdbc7:jar:12.1.0.2 in central
(https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2) -> [Help 1]
I want to know how can I supply this dependency so that my project can be built successfully.
Has anyone experienced a similar issue?
POM.xml contains:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.oracle</groupId>
<artifactId>ojdbc7</artifactId>
<version>12.1.0.2</version>
</dependency>

If your pom.xml contains a dependency - then you should provide it or delete it.
If you're not trying to understand "maven" way of doing things and just want to make it work - try this "lazy" solution:
<repository>
<id>code-lds</id>
<url>https://code.lds.org/nexus/content/groups/main-repo</url>
</repository>
Add this repository to your section. It's a widely-used third-party repository that contains several common artifacts like Oracle drivers and etc.

Maven - Handling Snapshot Dependencies

I have the following maven dependency in my web application POM, which in turn should pull other dependencies:
<dependency>
<groupId>com.my.libraries</groupId>
<artifactId>my-libs</artifactId>
<type>pom</type>
<version>1.6-SNAPSHOT</version>
</dependency>
NOTE I had release 1.5 for my-libs artifact previously pulled during an older build. But I have later upgraded the version to 1.6-SNAPSHOT. mathlibrary artifact wasn't present in 1.5 release.
I am expecting some jars to be present as part of my-libs artifact verson 1.6-SNAPSHOT which wasn't present in 1.5 - the pOM is below:
<!-- all the usual POM descriptionsm for my-libs -->
<groupId>com.my.libraries</groupId>
<artifactId>my-libs</artifactId>
<version>1.6-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>pom</packaging>
<!-- continues... all normal stuff, nothing to see here :'/ -->
<dependency>
<groupId>com.my</groupId>
<artifactId>mathlibrary</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
</dependency>
<!-- continues -->
I expected that mathlibrary jar would be pulled if I do mvn package for my project. But when I looked at the lib folder for my webapplication the jar wasn't there. I then checked my .m2 directory contents and it seems that only version 1.5 is present, so 1.6-snapshot wasn't automatically installed. From here, I am thinking that if a release version is pulled before, it doesn't pull the next SNAPSHOT?
After I manually installed my-libs artifact using mvn clean install - on the next build for my web application it pulled the jars correctly. Does this mean that my package phase is defined not to automatically pull the SNAPSHOT dependencies? or is this something expected (i.e. I have to manually run install phase it if it's not a release version) ?

Use mvn package pulls all SNAPSHOT dependencies from your local repository (and also updates your local repository from a remote repository every 24 hours, if the artifact comes a remote one).
I do not really understand what you mean by "manually installed my-libs" because there is no automatic way to install artifacts (except for CI servers, that install/deploy on checkin). If you want to use an artifact (like my-libs), you need to build it and put it in the local repository -- and you do this by using mvn install.

Answer to your question depends on which packaging you are using in your pom.xml and on which plugins have executions tailored to the packge phase. When dependencies are processed, Maven usually resolves them, which means that corresponding jar files will be in your local repository.
Getting jar files in your target folder (as is, or unpacked) is a result of some plugin's work (such plugin would execute a mojo at prepare-package or package phase (usually). So, make sure you use proper packaging (such as war) or e.g. "assembly" plugin (which can repack dependencies for you).
To make your dependency artefacts available for resolution and further use, you should either deploy them to a remote repository, or install them to local repository.

After reading #JFMeier answer on this, I did the following:
1) Removed all release/snapshots from my .m2 directory.
2) Changed my web app POM to use 1.5 release for my-libs
3) Kicked off the build.
4) Once the build finishes, I confirm that mylibraries jar hasn't been deployed in my final web application directory in tomcat's WEB-INF\lib
5) Repeated steps 2-4 - BUT changed the version to 1.6-SNAPSHOT for my-libs.
6) Now I can see the expected result.

Maven is only getting into repository (either global or local) when you make a mvn install. With Maven Install, Maven checks if all the POM libraries are present in your project and downloads from repositories into your project if some are missing. If you do a Maven package, it only packages the libraries present in your project.

How to add jar file dependency in pom.xml

I have an application that depends on 2 jar file :
OperatorInterface.jar
Operator.jar
I want to build my project using Maven structure. I've followed the Maven site tutorial to create the structure like so:
mvn -B archetype:generate -DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archetypes -DgroupId=source.app -DartifactId=project
I've put my source file FileProcess.java in E:\project\src\main\java\source\app.
FileProcess has dependency in 2 external .jar files but I don't know how to define this dependency in pom.xml.
Here is the content of the pom.xml so far:
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>source.app</groupId>
<artifactId>my-app</artifactId>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>my-app</name>
<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>3.8.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
Can anyone help me?

First thing you need to install your jars in your maven local repository. You can follow the official tutorial here:
https://maven.apache.org/guides/mini/guide-3rd-party-jars-local.html
During the installation you will have to choose your own artifactId, groupId and version. You can choose whatever value you want but remember them because you will need those to include your jars in the pom.
After that you can include them in your pom.xml adding these lines under the tag dependencies for each library to include:
<dependency>
<groupId>your_group_id</groupId>
<artifactId>your_artifact_id</artifactId>
<version>your_version</version>
</dependency>

In the case when the JARs in question are your own code rather than third-party, the best approach is to "mavenize" the projects that build them as well. After you do that, running mvn install on those projects will place them in your Maven local repository where they will be available to other local Maven projects who declare them as dependencies.

Avoid adding them to yourpom.xml file straight. When you add .jars using this process, they will automatically reflect in your pom.xml
Steps are -
1. Right click on your project in the file explorer in your eclipse.
2. Go to build Path option.
3. Select configure build path
4. Chose the Libraries tab in the window that appears.
5. Add your .jar file externally.
6. Click ok and come back to your project interface
Update your maven project by pressing Alt+F5 and restart eclipse. Your problem should be solved.

I would take the following route since this is for corporate use. This is the hard and ultimately portable way that sets you up for future Maven usage as it is intended to be done.
1) make those dependent jars Maven projects (because then you can easily version-manage them too using Maven)
2) use a local repository manager and deploy your own projects to it using Maven release management through either the mvn:release plugin, or use a build server such as Hudson to automate the release process with a simple button press which I can highly recommend setting up.
https://maven.apache.org/repository-management.html
http://maven.apache.org/maven-release/maven-release-plugin/
3) mvn:release the dependency jars to your local repository manager so they will be available for other Maven projects
4) you're actually done, when you have a local repository where your deploy your own snapshot and release artifacts to, then your maven build can find your own maven modules and include them in the application dependencies - if you don't forget to configure the repository in the project's pom of course. And your build server if you have one can find them too.
The easy/lazy route is as suggested to manually install the jars in your local .m2 folder where Maven caches dependencies that it downloads, but it is absolutely not a portable solution that will stand the test of time. It won't work when somebody else needs to work on this project until they too install the jars locally. Or if its only you, you need to redo it every time you checkout the project on another computer / as another user. Also you need to update the jars each and every time you make changes to them, everywhere the project is checked out. You may need to do specific setup steps to get it working in an IDE, should you inevitably choose to start to use one.
However if you are having a time-pressure problem, then I would certainly go ahead and do that as a temporary workaround solution to be able to get going.

Building maven project with custom version of artifact instead of the one from repo

I'm new to maven, sorry for nub question: need to build maven project using my version of artifact instead of the one from repo.
More detailed:
I downloaded jboss sources from github and built them using maven 3. It was great! I need to do some changes in jboss dependancy called "picketbox". Now it is an artifact in jboss's "pom.xml".
I built my own version of picketbox in my_picketbox.jar file. How can I tell maven to use my .jar instead of the one from repo?

Maybe I'm missing something but if you explicitly renamed the artifact then it will just be a matter of replacing picketbox with my_picketboxin the relevant JBoss POM-file(s).
<dependency>
<groupId>...</groupId>
<artifactId>my_picketbox</artifactId>
<version>...</version>
</dependency>
And of course, you make sure your artifact is in your local repo by mvn install'ing it.
Cheers,

i would install the jar file using the maven-install plugin.
http://maven.apache.org/plugins/maven-install-plugin/install-file-mojo.html

First, install your version of Picketbox into your local Maven repository. If your custom version is a Maven project, you can do that by running
mvn install
If your custom Picketbox version is not a Maven project, install the Jar itself into your local Maven repository like this:
mvn install:install-file -Dfile=my_picketbox.jar -DgroupId=org.picketbox -DartifactId=my_picketbox -Dversion=2.3 -Dpackaging=jar
Then change the version of Picketbox that JBoss depends on by adding this snippet to the pom.xml file of the JBoss project you're building (replace the existing dependency on pocketbox with this one):
<dependency>
<groupId>org.picketbox</groupId>
<artifactId>my_picketbox</artifactId>
<version>2.3</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
<groupId>xxx</groupId>
<artifactId>xxx</artifactId>
<version>x.x.x</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>${project.basedir}/lib/xxxx.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
This allows you to reference libaries that are not stored localy rather than maven central.

Maven takes what has been specified in POM files; mind you, that the POM including the dependency you wrote about can be buried very deeply, not even within the sources you downloaded.
Search your project tree for the artifact in question and replace its version number to your version. If this does not help, do as Nils says in the other answer, but remember to install the artifact in the original version (you may have to find it first in your local repository and remove it).