Maven User-Agent property and pluginRepository - c++

Question

What I want
To get this guide to work
http://blog.bigpixel.ro/2012/07/building-cc-applications-with-maven/
The Error
I'm running into into troubles with a HTTP 500 error code, which is as follows:
[ERROR] Unresolveable build extension: Plugin org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-nar-plugin:2.1-SNAPSHOT or one of its dependencies could not be resolved: Failed to collect dependencies for org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-nar-plugin:jar:2.1-SNAPSHOT (): Failed to read artifact descriptor for org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-nar-plugin:jar:2.1-SNAPSHOT: Could not transfer artifact org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-nar-plugin:pom:2.1-SNAPSHOT from/to Duns maven snapshot (http://duns.github.com/maven-snapshots/): Failed to transfer file: http://duns.github.com/maven-snapshots/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-nar-plugin/2.1-SNAPSHOT/maven-nar-plugin-2.1-SNAPSHOT.pom. Return code is: 500, ReasonPhrase:( The request was rejected by the HTTP filter. Contact your Forefront TMG administrator. ). -> [Help 2]
What I've tried
I started with the 'maven getting started in 5 minutes' tutorial. This didn't go smoothly as I ran into a 500 HTTP error because of forefront that's implemented on my current network. I managed to get around this by setting the User Agent string property within my settings.xml.
<servers>
<server>
<id>central</id>
<configuration>
<httpHeaders>
<property>
<name>User-Agent</name>
<value>Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; Trident/4.0; InfoPath.1; SV1; .NET CLR 3.8.36217; WOW64; en-US)</value>
</property>
</httpHeaders>
</configuration>
</server>
</servers>
This worked and I was able to get maven working for java projects.
I would have thought that that would be the end of the HTTP 500 errors but I'm still getting them whenever I try to pull plugins from a new pluginRepository.
I've followed the guide linked at top with one exception. Instead of putting the pluginRepository in the pom.xml in the parent folder, I put it into a profile within my settings.xml file. I did first try putting in the pom.xml but later pulled it out in the hopes that it would fix it.
Is there something within maven that is not honouring this User-Agent string that I've specified? Why does it work for the maven 5 minute tutorial and not for anything else?
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Answer 1

Figured it out.
Turns out I had to make another server entry for each of the plugin repositories I wanted maven to user the custom User-Agent string for by targetting the ID of the pluginRepository in the tags.
Now if only there was some way to apply the user-agent string to all future defined pluginrepositories
edit: Following up, I couldn't find a way within maven to apply the user-agent string to all pluginrepository configurations. I've come up with a work around that involves Squid as a proxy that replaces the User-Agent property in outgoing http requests with a custom defined one and configured maven to use that proxy. It works perfectly.