title: using maven scm plugin
body: <p>Is it possible to use the maven scm plugin for tagging releases without having to use the release plugin?</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to do the following but it doesn't work</p>
  
  <p>Extract from pom file</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;scm&gt;
    &lt;connection&gt;scm:git:ssh://myuser@gerrit/tutorial.git&lt;/connection&gt;
    &lt;developerConnection&gt;scm:git:ssh://myuser@gerrit/tutorial.git&lt;/developerConnection&gt;
  &lt;/scm&gt;
  
  &lt;plugin&gt;
    &lt;groupId&gt;org.apache.maven.plugins&lt;/groupId&gt;
    &lt;artifactId&gt;maven-scm-plugin&lt;/artifactId&gt;
    &lt;version&gt;1.7&lt;/version&gt;
    &lt;executions&gt;
      &lt;execution&gt;
        &lt;goals&gt;
          &lt;goal&gt;tag&lt;/goal&gt;
        &lt;/goals&gt;
      &lt;/execution&gt;
    &lt;/executions&gt;
  &lt;/plugin&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and from command line I do</p>
  
  <pre><code>mvn clean install scm:tag
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Maven returns the following error</p>
  
  <p>[INFO] One or more required plugin parameters are invalid/missing for 'scm:tag'</p>
  
  <p>[0] Inside the definition for plugin 'maven-scm-plugin' specify the following:</p>
  
  <p>
    ...
    VALUE
  </p>
  
  <p>-OR-</p>
  
  <p>on the command line, specify: '-Dtag=VALUE'</p>
  
  <pre><code>[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] Trace 
  org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Error configuring: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-scm-plugin. Reason: Invalid or missing parameters: [Mojo parameter [name: 'tag'; alias: 'null']] for mojo: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-scm-plugin:1.7:tag
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:723)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeStandaloneGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:569)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:539)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:387)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:284)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:180)
      at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:328)
      at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:138)
      at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:362)
      at org.apache.maven.cli.compat.CompatibleMain.main(CompatibleMain.java:60)
      at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
      at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
      at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
      at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
      at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
      at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
      at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
  Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.PluginParameterException: Error configuring: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-scm-plugin. Reason: Invalid or missing parameters: [Mojo parameter [name: 'tag'; alias: 'null']] for mojo: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-scm-plugin:1.7:tag
      at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.checkRequiredParameters(DefaultPluginManager.java:1117)
      at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.getConfiguredMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:722)
      at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:468)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:694)
      ... 17 more
  </code></pre>