war:war launched from parent doesn't find module web.xml

foo
+-- pom.xml
+-- foo-contact
+-- pom.xml
+-- contact
+-- WebContent
+-- WEB-INF
+-- web.xml

In foo-contact pom.xml :
<build> <plugins> <plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<warSourceDirectory>contact/WebContent</warSourceDirectory>
</configuration>
</plugin> </plugins></build>

war:war launched from foo-contact is OK.

war:war launched from foo produces :
org.apache.maven.plugin.MojoExecutionException: Error assembling WAR
at org.apache.maven.plugin.war.WarMojo.execute(WarMojo.java:224)
...
Caused by: org.codehaus.plexus.archiver.ArchiverException: Deployment descriptor: /devel/maven/src/RIC/trunk/ric-contact/target/contact/WEB-INF/web.xml does not exist.
at org.codehaus.plexus.archiver.war.WarArchiver.setWebxml(WarArchiver.java:70)
...

Adding <webXml>contact/WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml</webXml> produces the same message.

Adding <webXml>${basedir}/contact/WebContent/WEB-INF/web.xml</webXml> solves the issue.

I guess out two things here :
* when you launch war:war from parent, webXml does not default to ${warSourceDirectory}/WEB-INF/web.xml
* webXml isn't implicitly prefixed with ${basedir}/

See also http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=turbine-maven-user&m=111623705811553&w=2 for a previous report of this issue.