Unlike the site plugin that uses a property to set the tar program used (maven.site.tar.executable), the dist plugin uses the hard coded string 'tar' to run the tar command. This is a problem on Solaris OS where the 'U' option is not supported by the standard tar program. Below is the snippet of plugin.jelly script in question (dist:deploy goal) - <deploy:artifact artifact="distributions.tar.gz" type="distributions" assureDirectoryCommand="mkdir -p" siteCommand="cd @deployDirectory@;gunzip distributions.tar.gz;tar xUvf distributions.tar;chmod -R g+u *;rm distributions.tar" /> It would seem appropriate/consistent to replace the hard coded string with a 'maven.dist.tar.executable' to allow a different tar program, i.e. GNU tar, that supports the 'U' to be used. This would default to a value of 'tar' and therefore be transparent in behaviour for most people. This bug was also present in Beta 10. Cheers, Martin.