The run goal forks a process for the boot application. It is possible to specify jvm arguments to that forked process. The following configuration suspend the process until a debugger has joined on port 5005

<project>
  ...
  <build>
    ...
    <plugins>
      ...
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
        <version>0.0.9.BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>
        <configuration>
          <jvmArguments>
            -Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=5005
          </jvmArguments>
        </configuration>
        ...
      </plugin>
      ...
    </plugins>
    ...
  </build>
  ...
</project>

These arguments can be specified on the command line as well, make sure to wrap that properly, that is:

mvn spring-boot:run -Drun.jvmArguments="-Xdebug -Xrunjdwp:transport=dt_socket,server=y,suspend=y,address=5005"