Maven: how to get a war package with resources copied in WEB-INF?

either configure the outputDirectory parameter of resources:resources plugin, or put your files under src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/ directory. resource plugin

EDIT:

This configuration is working for me:

  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-resources-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.4.2</version>
    <executions>
      <execution>
        <id>default-copy-resources</id>
        <phase>process-resources</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>copy-resources</goal>
        </goals>
        <configuration>
          <overwrite>true</overwrite>
          <outputDirectory>${project.build.directory}/${project.artifactId}-${project.version}/WEB-INF/</outputDirectory>
          <resources>
            <resource>
              <directory>${project.basedir}/src/main/resources</directory>
            </resource>
          </resources>
        </configuration>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>

you can run a phase in the form somePhase or a goal somePlugin:someGoal. The phase invocations will invoke all plugins goals hooked on phases in interval [validate,phase] in order, so there's no need to explicitly call them.

Web resources are not the same as java resources, which should be placed in the classpath. Web resources are processed via the war plugin and should be placed into src\main\webapp\WEB-INF\. In this case, it will work automatically without any additional configuration in the pom.xml