web.xml is missing and <failOnMissingWebXml> is set to true

Question

This is a maven error. It says that it is expecting a web.xml file in your project because it is a web application, as indicated by <packaging>war</packaging>. However, for recent web applications a web.xml file is totally optional. Maven needs to catch up to this convention. Add this to your maven pom.xml to let maven catch up and you don't need to add a useless web.xml to your project:

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>2.6</version>
            <configuration>
                <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

This is a better solution than adding an empty web.xml because this way your final product stays clean, your are just changing your build parameters.

For more current versions of maven you can also use the shorter version:

<properties>
    <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
</properties>

You can do it also like this:

1. Right click on Deployment Descriptor in Project Explorer.
2. Select Generate Deployment Descriptor Stub.

It will generate WEB-INF folder in src/main/webapp and an web.xml in it.

If you already have web.xml under /src/main/webapp/WEB-INF but you still get error "web.xml is missing and is set to true", you could check if you have included /src/main/webapp in your project source.

Here are the steps you can follow:

1. You can check this by right clicking your project, and open its Properties dialogue, and then "Deployment Assembly", where you can add Folder /src/main/webapp. Save the setting, and then,
2. Go to Eclipse menu Project -> Clean... and clean the project, and the error should go away.

(I verified this with Eclipse Mars)

You can also do this which is less verbose

<properties>
    <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
</properties>

If you use Spring Tool Suite, option for Generate Deployment Descriptor Stub is moved under Java EE Tools, so you:

1. Right click on your project
2. Select Java EE Tools
3. Select Generate Deployment Descriptor Stub option

This will create web.xml file inside src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/ folder, and of course remove error from Maven's pom.xml file.

I have the same problem. After studying and googling, I have resolved my problem:

Right click on the project folder, go to Java EE Tools, select Generate Deployment Descriptor Stub. This will create web.xml in the folder src/main/webapp/WEB-INF.

Eclipse recognizes incorrect default webapp directory. Therefore we should set clearly it by maven-war-plugin.

<build>
  <plugins>
    <plugin>
      <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
      <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
      <version>3.0.0</version>
      <configuration>
        <webappDirectory>src/main/webapp</webappDirectory>
      </configuration>
    </plugin>
  </plugins>
</build>

Once saving this setting, the error will never occour if removed it. (I cannot explain why.)