Using System Properties

There are two ways to add a list of system properties to Failsafe:

systemPropertyVariables

This configuration is the replacement of the deprecated systemProperties. It can accept any value from Maven's properties that can be converted to String value.

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.10</version>
        <configuration>
          <systemPropertyVariables>
            <propertyName>propertyValue</propertyName>
            <buildDirectory>${project.build.directory}</buildDirectory>
            [...]
          </systemPropertyVariables>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

systemProperties ( deprecated )

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.10</version>
        <configuration>
          <systemProperties>
            <property>
              <name>propertyName</name>
              <value>propertyValue</value>
            </property>
            [...]
          </systemProperties>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

Take note that only String valued properties can be passed as system properties. Any attempt to pass any other Maven variable type (i.e. List or a URL variable) will cause the variable expression to be passed literally (unevaluated). So having the example below:

<project>
  [...]
  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-failsafe-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>2.10</version>
        <configuration>
          <systemProperties>
            <property>
              <name>buildDir</name>
              <value>${project.build.outputDirectory}</value>
            </property>
          </systemProperties>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>
  [...]
</project>

will literally pass ${project.build.outputDirectory} because the value of that expression is a File, not a String.

To inherit the "systemProperties" collection from the parent configuration, you will need to specify combine.children="append" on the systemProperties node in the child pom:

  <systemProperties combine.children="append">
      <property>
         [...]
      </property>
   </systemProperties>