Ok, I started this by following some site that stated that if you add the configuration in the reporting section, it would be picked up by the build plugin section. This does not work. I still have more work that I want to do on this by adding the dependency for the jar file for the checks. What I am finding is the I have to spec the suppressions file even though I have it defined within the checks file. I also have to pass in the variable using the propertyExpansion that points to the internal suppression file (I wanted this one, not having to also spec the suppressions file a second time). I now have my build plugin stanza as
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-checkstyle-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.10</version>
<configuration>
<propertyExpansion>suppressions.file=${basedir}/suppressions.xml</propertyExpansion>
<configLocation>file:///${basedir}/../buildTools/checkstyle/checkstyle-5.0-checks.xml</configLocation>
<suppressionsFile>${basedir}/suppressions.xml</suppressionsFile>
</configuration>
</plugin>