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Nexus and LASSO: A Step-by-Step Guide

This guide walks you through the process of setting up a new artifact repository in Nexus as part of LASSO's executable corpus. Please note that security risks are not considered, so do not expose your instances.

Quickstart Guide (Docker)​

This guide assumes you have a working Docker installation on your local machine. You can refer to the official Docker documentation for instructions: (https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/linux-postinstall/)

We will use the official Sonatype Nexus OSS image for this guide. Please note that security risks are not considered, so do not expose your instances.

Start Nexus in a Container​

# start nexus in a container
docker run -d -p 8081:8081 --name nexus sonatype/nexus3
# NOTE: be patient (!), nexus takes some time to start

Get Password for User 'admin'​

# get password for user 'admin'
docker exec -it nexus bash
cat sonatype-work/nexus3/admin.password
# terminate bash - ctrl-d

Tested with Sonatype Nexus OSS 3.65.0-02.

Nexus Configuration​

Open Your Web Browser and Login​

Open your web browser and navigate to http://localhost:8081/. Log in as 'admin' using the aforementioned password. After a successful login, Nexus will start a quick wizard. Make sure to enable anonymous access.

Deployment of Subject Artifacts within LASSO​

Actions like GenerateCodeOllama assume a (Nexus) artifact repository to be present for deployment of artifacts under analysis (on-the-fly). This requires the presence of a repository in which artifacts can be deployed.

Step-by-Step Instructions:​

  1. Log in to your Nexus Repository manager using your admin account (e.g., http://localhost:8081/)
  2. Go to http://localhost:8081/#admin/repository/repositories
  3. Click Create repository
  4. Choose repository type maven2 (hosted)
  5. Assign a unique identifier (e.g., lasso-deploy)
  6. Set version policy to mixed, layout policy to permissive, and deployment policy to allow redeploy
  7. Go to http://localhost:8081/#admin/repository/repositories:maven-public and add your newly created repository to Members, so we can retrieve deployed artifacts via the maven-public repository

Update LASSO's Configuration File corpus.json​

You need to update LASSO's configuration file corpus.json with your Nexus deployment settings. Please note that you need to restart LASSO after updating the configuration file.

  "artifactRepository": {
    "id": "lasso_quickstart_nexus",
    "name": "Quickstart nexus",
    "url": "http://localhost:8081/repository/maven-public/",
    "deploymentUrl": "http://localhost:8081/repository/lasso-deploy/",
    "user": "XXX",
    "pass": "XXX",
    "description": "quickstart repository of LASSO"
  }

Restart LASSO​

You need to restart LASSO with the updated corpus.json configuration file. It might be necessary to update LASSO's Maven configuration in lasso-work/repository/settings.xml as well (alternatively, change or removing LASSO's existing work directory).

Note: For advanced use cases with LASSO, setting up a deployment user is a better choice instead of using the admin user. Refer to Sonatype's official documentation to learn more.

Deployment of LASSO's Support Libraries (Required)​

Certain features of LASSO rely on LASSO-related support libraries that need to be deployed in your Nexus instance. This allows LASSO's facilities to access the required libraries.

Global Maven Deployment Settings​

Before proceeding, modify the password in doc/nexus_config/settings_plugin_deploy.xml (i.e., local LASSO repository) to match your custom Nexus password. An example of the modified file is shown below -

...

    <servers>
        <server>
            <id>lasso_quickstart_nexus</id>
            <username>admin</username>
            <password>YOUR_NEXUS_PASSWORD</password>
        </server>
    </servers>

...

Deploy LASSO Artifacts​

To deploy all LASSO-related artifacts to your local Nexus repository, run the following command in your local LASSO repository -

# set your path to LASSO's repository
./mvnw -s doc/nexus_config/settings_plugin_deploy.xml -gs doc/nexus_config/settings_plugin_deploy.xml -DskipTests -Dfrontend.build=embedded -DaltDeploymentRepository=lasso_quickstart_nexus::default::http://localhost:8081/repository/lasso-deploy/ -DaltReleaseDeploymentRepository=lasso_quickstart_nexus::default::http://localhost:8081/repository/lasso-deploy/ -DaltSnapshotDeploymentRepository=lasso_quickstart_nexus::default::http://localhost:8081/repository/lasso-deploy/ deploy