 <p>The plugin works the same as the <a href="http://maven.apache.org/" rel="nofollow">Maven</a> command line progam mvn.</p> <p>Assuming your project's POM and Maven settings file does not change the default repository settings Maven will download files from Maven Central</p> <p><a href="http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/" rel="nofollow">http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/</a></p> <p>So taking a dependency as follows:</p> <pre><code>&lt;dependency&gt; &lt;groupId&gt;log4j&lt;/groupId&gt; &lt;artifactId&gt;log4j&lt;/artifactId&gt; &lt;version&gt;1.2.16&lt;/version&gt; &lt;/dependency&gt; </code></pre> <p>Maven will use the following URL convention (Maven2 repository layout):</p> <pre><code>&lt;Repository URL&gt;/&lt;groupId&gt;/&lt;artifactId&gt;/&lt;version&gt;/&lt;artifactId&gt;-&lt;version&gt;.&lt;packaging&gt; </code></pre> <p>To download 2 files:</p> <ol> <li><a href="http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/log4j/log4j/1.2.16/log4j-1.2.16.pom" rel="nofollow">http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/log4j/log4j/1.2.16/log4j-1.2.16.pom</a></li> <li><a href="http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/log4j/log4j/1.2.16/log4j-1.2.16.jar" rel="nofollow">http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/log4j/log4j/1.2.16/log4j-1.2.16.jar</a></li> </ol> <p>The first is the module POM, whose <strong>packaging</strong> element will indicate the file name extension to use when downloading the second file (defaults to "jar").</p> <p>Finally Maven will recursively read the POM files associated with other dependencies listed in the POM and decide which other modules to download (Dependencies of Dependencies)</p>