Run JUnit Tests contained in dependency jar using Maven Surefire

I have a jar in my maven repository that contains junit tests, which should be run in different projects, because it is able to inspect the project and test for certain features of it. Unforunately surefire doesn't pick up tests that are contained in a jar, as this Feature Request shows.

In the feature request they propose to unpack the jar to be then executed by surefire.

I successfully unpacked the jar using the maven-dependency-plugin, but the contained tests are not executed anyway. This is how I configured the maven-dependency-plugin to unpack my jar:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-dependency-plugin</artifactId>
    <executions>
        <execution>
            <id>unpack</id>
            <phase>process-test-classes</phase>
            <goals>
                <goal>unpack</goal>
            </goals>
            <configuration>
                <artifactItems>
                    <artifactItem>
                        <groupId>de.mwx.test</groupId>
                        <artifactId>selenium-test-base</artifactId>
                        <version>0.1</version>
                        <overWrite>true</overWrite>
                          <outputDirectory>
                              ${project.build.directory}/classes
                          </outputDirectory>
                    </artifactItem>
                </artifactItems>
            </configuration>
        </execution>
    </executions>
</plugin>

Any help would be appriciated.

There is a way of running a test in maven from another jar. from maven-surefire-plugin version 2.15 you can tell maven to scan your test jars for tests and run them. You don't need to extract the tests jar. Just add a dependency to your test jar and:

<plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
            <dependenciesToScan>
                <dependency>test.jar.group:test.jar.artifact.id</dependency>
            </dependenciesToScan>
        </configuration>
    </plugin>

Took this stuff from https://gist.github.com/aslakknutsen/4520226 And https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/SUREFIRE-569

As expected, this works for JUnit and Testng. Will probably work for anything that surefire can run.