How do I exclude certain modules from a Maven build using the commandline

Is there a way to exclude some modules from a big reactor build, similar to -pl ?

Here are a number of ways to do it persistently:

How to exclude a module from a Maven reactor build?

I want to do it from shell, or at least without modifying the poms, which I am not allowed to change.

Maven 3.2.1 has added this feature, you can use to specify the exact projects you want (or to exclude the projects you don't want) -pl or --projects Here's how to exclude two:

-pl "!<modulename>,!<modulename2>"

for exclude certain modules. This can be comma separated list of values that you want to include/exclude.

Update For windows user following

> mvn clean [package|install] --projects \!groupId:artifactId

Another comment on the accepted answer, don't forget to escape the exclamation sign when running the command in bash:

> mvn clean install -pl \!module,\!module/submodule,\!groupId:artifactId

As Yogesh_D wrote it can be done with the -pl argument with maven 3.2.1+

Here's an example:

> mvn clean install -amd -pl !module,!module/submodule

You need to list every sub-module (and sub-sub-module etc) manually, it does not exclude them recursively. Use the slash for package separation. It's the folder path, not the group or artifact id.