By default, a META-INF directory is ignored by the jar utility being that it's a special directory in the archive. To tell the jar tool to do what you want execute jar cvfM helloworld.ear web-app.war META-INF Use of the 'M' flag shuts the default behavior off. Note, usually people use Ant for this type of stuff being that when you use the above command a MANIFEST.MF file is not generated for you automatically. If you want to use the form above and you required a MANIFEST.MF file, you will have to write/generate it yourself and place it in the META-INF directory. Note...as previously mentioned, META-INF has to exist ;-) View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=3992213#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...