How to specify JVM argument for Maven built executable JAR

Question

When using Maven to build an executable JAR, how do I specify the JVM arguments that are used when the JAR is executed?

I can specify the main class using <mainClass>. I suspect there's a similar attribute for JVM arguments. Specially I need to specify the maximum memory (example -Xmx500m).

Here's my assembly plugin:

  <plugin>
    <artifactId>maven-assembly-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
      <descriptorRefs>
        <descriptorRef>jar-with-dependencies</descriptorRef>
      </descriptorRefs>
      <archive>
        <manifest>
          <addClasspath>true</addClasspath>
          <mainClass>com.me.myApplication</mainClass>
        </manifest>
      </archive>
    </configuration>
  </plugin>

Edit/Follow-up: It seems that it might not be possible to specify JVM arguments for an executable JAR according to this and this post.

Answer 1

I don't know of any such mechanism. The JVM configuration is specified by the calling java command.

Here's the jar file specification which conspicuously doesn't mention any attribute other than Main-Class for stand-alone execution:

http://java.sun.com/javase/6/docs/technotes/guides/jar/jar.html