"java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space" in Maven build

If you want to make this part of your POM for a repeatable build, you can use the fork-variant of a few of the plugins (especially compiler:compile and surefire:test):

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.2</version>
    <configuration>
      <fork>true</fork>
      <meminitial>128m</meminitial>
      <maxmem>1024m</maxmem>
      <compilerArgs>
        <arg>-XX:MaxPermSize=256m</arg>
      </compilerArgs>
    </configuration>
  </plugin>

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>2.18</version>
    <configuration>
        <forkCount>1</forkCount>
        <argLine>-Xmx1024m -XX:MaxPermSize=256m</argLine>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

When you say you increased MAVEN_OPTS, what values did you increase? Did you increase the MaxPermSize, as in example:

export MAVEN_OPTS="-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m"

(or on Windows:)

set MAVEN_OPTS=-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m

You can also specify these JVM options in each maven project separately.

Increase the size of your perm space, of course. Use the -XX:MaxPermSize=128m option. Set the value to something appropriate.