diff --git a/jvm-packages/create_jni.sh b/jvm-packages/create_jni.sh
index 0c6469b9a..cf14d7f2d 100755
--- a/jvm-packages/create_jni.sh
+++ b/jvm-packages/create_jni.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,7 @@
 #!/usr/bin/env bash
+
+set -e -x
+
 echo "build java wrapper"
 
 # cd to script's directory
diff --git a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/pom.xml b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/pom.xml
index 00cfed904..bb4e4d1e8 100644
--- a/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/pom.xml
+++ b/jvm-packages/xgboost4j/pom.xml
@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@
                     <plugin>
                         <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                         <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
+                        <version>1.6.0</version>
                         <executions>
                             <execution><!-- Run our version calculation script -->
                                 <id>native</id>