Download single/latest asset(JAR) from Nexus3

Question

I am trying to download the latest/newest asset(JAR) from my local Nexus repo. I am using Nexus Swagger UI. It has a GET method to download,

GET /beta/search/assets/download

The issue is..I have many assets in the repo, and it gives an error,

Search returned multiple assets, please refine search criteria to find a single asset

How do I refine my search & get the latest/newest JAR?

FYI.. currently, I have 20+ assets in the repo, below I am showing two of them..

{
  "items": [
    {
      "downloadUrl": "http://localhost:8081/repository/snapshot/com/openshift/test/openshift-jenkins/0.0.1-SNAPSHOT/openshift-jenkins-0.0.1-20180214.211251-17.jar",
      "path": "com/openshift/test/openshift-jenkins/0.0.1-SNAPSHOT/openshift-jenkins-0.0.1-20180214.211251-17.jar",
      "id": "c25hcHNob3Q6ZTAxODhlZDA3MjhmYTY4ZmIwOGZkYzAyYTliZTQ4Zjg",
      "repository": "snapshot",
      "format": "maven2",
      "checksum": {
        "sha1": "53cdfcf964d0edd5fc6fdefa457e700eff47a1ca",
        "md5": "d0c82971b82957728d0b4c858150d56c"
      }
    },
    {
      "downloadUrl": "http://localhost:8081/repository/snapshot/com/openshift/test/openshift-jenkins/0.0.1-SNAPSHOT/openshift-jenkins-0.0.1-20180214.210246-15.jar",
      "path": "com/openshift/test/openshift-jenkins/0.0.1-SNAPSHOT/openshift-jenkins-0.0.1-20180214.210246-15.jar",
      "id": "c25hcHNob3Q6MjEwMzFkZmFmNDVlNWI1ODgwZTUwYjE5M2Y5NGVkNjk",
      "repository": "snapshot",
      "format": "maven2",
      "checksum": {
        "sha1": "b041f4b1e6bcb81366a72635f6c576ae46a83ec8",
        "md5": "af970e3e66c9cd20ff66f1074da04c21"
      }
    }
  ],
  "continuationToken": null
}

Answer 1

Instead of using a search, you might using an artifact redirtect (with curl -L being able to follow the redirection): /artifact/maven/redirect

curl -L "http://repository.sonatype.org/service/local/artifact/maven/redirect?r=central-proxy&g=log4j&a=log4j&v=LATEST" -o log4j.jar

However, it might not be available for Nexus 3 yet.

In that case, you need to download and parse first the maven-metadata.xml.
You can extract from there the latest tag.

---

Sice Feb. 2018, NEXUS-12469 asks the same question, and references NEXUS-14407: REST Search & Download by 'Latest', released in 3.16, Q4 2019.

Extend the search & download service so that users can sort the search results by 'latest version'.

Examples:

http://localhost:8081/service/rest/v1/search/assets/download?repository=maven-central&group=junit&name=junit&sort=version&prerelease=false

curl -L -o myartifact.tar.gz -u xxx:xxx "http://localhost:8080/service/rest/v1/search/assets/download?sort=version&direction=desc&repository=maven-snapshots&maven.groupId=bla.bla.bla&maven.artifactId=bla-bla&maven.extension=tar.gz

So a combination of:

• API endpoint assets/download
• sort=version modifier