I have a project and it has aPOM file, I have the below entry in it.
<repository>
<id>central</id>
<name>${project.artifactId}</name>
<url>${repo.deploy}</url>
</repository>
Values for the placeholders are not available in POM file. Where should these things be configured? In settings.xml file?
Yes, see here: http://maven.apache.org/guides/introduction/introduction-to-profiles.html