P2 is a package management format used for Eclipse IDE packages. Although p2 has specific support for installing Eclipse and Equinox-based applications, it includes a general-purpose provisioning infrastructure that can be used as the basis for provisioning solutions for a wide variety of software applications.
This allows the repository manager to take advantage of the packages in the official Eclipse repositories and other public P2 repositories without incurring repeated downloads of packages.
You can set up an P2 proxy repository to access a remote repository location, for example to proxy the Eclipse Oxygen repository at http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/eclipse/eclipse/updates/4.7/
You'll want to ensure for Eclipse sites that you are not using the link from the Foundation. Nexus Repository 2 had code to handle checking each mirror (Eclipse provides this in a mirrors attribute), but this as of yet does not exist for Nexus Repository 3. The link provided in these docs is one of many from: http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/download.php?format=xml&file=/eclipse/updates/4.7/
To proxy a P2 repository, you simply create a new 'p2 (proxy)' as documented in Repository Management in details. Minimal configuration steps are:
- Define 'Name'
- Define URL for 'Remote storage' e.g. http://mirror.csclub.uwaterloo.ca/eclipse/eclipse/updates/4.7/
- Select a 'Blob store' for 'Storage'
To configure P2 to use Nexus Repository as a Proxy for remote P2 sites, there are full docs available here from Eclipse.
To help you out, here's how to set up a site using Eclipse Oxygen on Mac OS X:
- Navigate to: Help > Install New Software
- Click "Add..."
- Define Name for 'Name' e.g. "p2-proxy-name"
- Define URL for 'Location' e.g. http://nexusUrl:nexusPort/repository/p2-Proxy-Name
After doing this, your P2 Proxy site will be available for Eclipse to cache metadata from, as well as request remote artifacts from.
NOTE: Eclipse includes P2 download sites by default, you will want to remove these if you intend to proxy solely through Nexus Repository.
You can browse P2 repositories in the user interface inspecting the components and assets and their details, as described in Browsing Repositories and Repository Groups.