Eclipse EAR project structure in eclipse - eclipse

Question

For the past years I have been working with Java EE 6 and simpler application structures, where only one ejb and one war project were present.
Now we have a more complex project, where I need to have additional modules:
- JPA package
- client interfaces for an automated tester application
So I have started creating the following projects in eclipse:
Client project
JPA project referencing the client project
EJB project referencing both client and JPA projects
WAR project, that should use services from the EJB project and pojo classes from JPA project
EAR project holding all of this
Packing the project together, I am facing different problems:
"A cycle was detected in the build path of project..." because multiple projects are referencing the client project, and it is packaged to the EAR
Error in annotation processing: {0}. java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError
I was trying to solve these problems. I have come up with solutions, but neither of them works.
Ex 1.: I have simplified the packing to only the JPA + Client + EAR, but this also gives me the cycle detected error. When I turn the error off, I get the 2nd error.
Ex 2.: Tried to simplify build path dependencies, but no luck.
I have also been thinking of merging the EJB + JPA projects, maybe that will work.
But my question is: using Eclipse for development, what is the desired (project and dependency) structure for an EAR app containing client interfaces, ejbs, jpa entities and a standalone tester app using only the client interfaces?
Thanks for your help!

Answer 1

First of all, for your components you won't need an EAR file, a WAR file is sufficient for Java EE 6 applications (see Java EE 6 tutorial on that topic).
Second, my recommendation is not using the project layout created by the eclipse wizard, but use a maven-based archetype (e.g. Knappsack Archetypes), which will give you an easier and standardized layout.