Installing Eclipse Plugins via commandline

I just learned, that it's possible to install eclipse plugins via a command line call.

All you need is an installed eclipse and the URL of the update site, e.g. http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse which is the update site of the Eclipse FindBugs Plugin.

First call Eclipse to list the available features:

---

$ eclipse -clean -purgeHistory \
 -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director \
 -noSplash \
 -list -repository http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse
edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse=2.0.3.20131122-15027
edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse=3.0.0.20140706-2cfb468
edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.group=2.0.3.20131122-15027
edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.group=3.0.0.20140706-2cfb468
edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.jar=2.0.3.20131122-15027
edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse.feature.jar=3.0.0.20140706-2cfb468
http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse/site.xml.FindBugs=1.0.0.7_-5cJBiB97E7AK9MAM3DUQLSEI
Operation completed in 3411 ms.

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Then tell Eclipse to install the features you want to use:

---

$ eclipse -clean -purgeHistory\
 -application org.eclipse.equinox.p2.director \
 -noSplash \
 -repository http://findbugs.cs.umd.edu/eclipse \
 -installIUs edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse
Installing edu.umd.cs.findbugs.plugin.eclipse 3.0.0.20140706-2cfb468.

---

That's all :)

For a complete list and description of parameters see the chapter in the eclipse online help.

I'm currently using this feature to build a docker container for a complete Java development environment.