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>1.1.5.RELEASE</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"