How to Install SonarQube on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS

In this article, we are going to perform, How to Install SonarQube on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS.

Table of Contents

Introduction

SonarQube is an opensource web based tool to manage code quality and code analysis. It is most widely used in continuous code inspection which performs reviews of code to detect bugs, code smells and vulnerability issues of programming languages such as PHP, C#, JavaScript, C/C++ and Java , Also tracks statistics and creates charts that enable developers to quickly identify problems in their code.

Prerequisites

Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS with minimum 2GB RAM and 1 CPU.
PostgreSQL Version 9.3 or higher
SSH access with sudo privileges
Firewall Port: 9000

Here, We are installing SonarQube 7.9.1 version and have to install Oracle JAVA/Open JDK, Postgres/MS-SQL as database and Latest browser before installing SonarQube. To know Prerequisite visit sonarqube official page Note: MySQL Support for SonarQube is depreciated. Increase the vm.max_map_count kernel ,file descriptor and ulimit for current session at runtime.

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

sudo sysctl -w fs.file-max=65536

sudo ulimit -n 65536

sudo ulimit -u 4096

To Increase the vm.max_map_count kernal ,file descriptor and ulimit permanently . Open the below config file and Insert the below value as shown below,

sudo nano /etc/security/limits.conf

/etc/security/limits.conf

sonarqube   -   nofile   65536
sonarqube   -   nproc    4096

OR If you are using systemd to manage the sonarqube services then add below value in sonarqube unit file under [service] section.

[Service]
...
LimitNOFILE=65536
LimitNPROC=4096
...

Before installing, Lets update and upgrade System Packages

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade

Install wget and unzip package

sudo apt-get install wget unzip -y

Step #1: Install OpenJDK

Install OpenJDK and JRE 11 using following command,

sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jdk -y
sudo apt-get install openjdk-11-jre -y

SET Default JDK

To set default JDK or switch to OpenJDK enter below command,

sudo update-alternatives --config java

You will see below choices for the alternative java (providing /usr/bin/java).

Selection    Path                                            Priority   Status

------------------------------------------------------------

  0            /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64/bin/java      1111      auto mode

  1            /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64/bin/java      1111      manual mode

  2            /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java   1081      manual mode

* 3            /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/jre/bin/java          1081      manual mode

Type 1 to switch OpenJDK 11.

Check JAVA Version:

java -version

Output:

$ java -version

openjdk version "11.0.4" 2019-07-16

OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.4+11-post-Ubuntu-116.04.1)

OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.4+11-post-Ubuntu-116.04.1, mixed mode, sharing)

Step #2: Install and Setup PostgreSQL 10 Database For SonarQube

Add and download the PostgreSQL Repo

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://apt.postgresql.org/pub/repos/apt/ `lsb_release -cs`-pgdg main" >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/pgdg.list'

wget -q https://www.postgresql.org/media/keys/ACCC4CF8.asc -O - | sudo apt-key add -

Install the PostgreSQL database Server by using following command,

sudo apt-get -y install postgresql postgresql-contrib

Start PostgreSQL Database server

sudo systemctl start postgresql

Enable it to start automatically at boot time.

sudo systemctl enable postgresql

Change the password for the default PostgreSQL user.

sudo passwd postgres

Switch to the postgres user.

su - postgres

Create a new user by typing:

createuser sonar

Switch to the PostgreSQL shell.

psql

Set a password for the newly created user for SonarQube database.

ALTER USER sonar WITH ENCRYPTED password 'sonar';

Create a new database for PostgreSQL database by running:

CREATE DATABASE sonarqube OWNER sonar;

grant all privileges to sonar user on sonarqube Database.

grant all privileges on DATABASE sonarqube to sonar;

Exit from the psql shell:

\q

Switch back to the sudo user by running the exit command.

exit

Step #3: Download and Install SonarQube on Ubuntu

Download sonaqube installer files archieve To download latest version of visit SonarQube download page.

cd /tmp

sudo wget https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonarqube/sonarqube-7.9.1.zip

Output:

https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonarqube/sonarqube-7.9.1.zip

Resolving binaries.sonarsource.com (binaries.sonarsource.com)... 91.134.125.245

Connecting to binaries.sonarsource.com (binaries.sonarsource.com)|91.134.125.245|:443... connected.

HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK

Length: 206192630 (197M) [application/zip]

Saving to: ‘sonarqube-7.9.1.zip’

sonarqube-7.9.1.zip                            100%[=================================================================================================>] 196.64M  30.0MB/s    in 7.4s

Unzip the archeve setup to /opt directory

sudo unzip sonarqube-7.9.1.zip -d /opt

Move extracted setup to /opt/sonarqube directory

sudo mv /opt/sonarqube-7.9.1 /opt/sonarqube

Step #4: Configure SonarQube

We can’t run Sonarqube as a root user , if you run using root user it stops automatically. We have found solution on this to create saparate group and user to run sonarqube.

1. Create Group and User:

Create a group as sonar

sudo groupadd sonar

Now add the user with directory access

sudo useradd -c "user to run SonarQube" -d /opt/sonarqube -g sonar sonar 
sudo chown sonar:sonar /opt/sonarqube -R

Open the SonarQube configuration file using your favorite text editor.

sudo nano /opt/sonarqube/conf/sonar.properties

Find the following lines.

#sonar.jdbc.username=
#sonar.jdbc.password=

Uncomment and Type the PostgreSQL Database username and password which we have created in above steps.

sonar.jdbc.username=your_user
sonar.jdbc.password=your_password

Edit the sonar script file and set RUN_AS_USER

sudo nano  /opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh

RUN_AS_USER=sonar

Type CTRL+X to save and close the file.

2. Start SonarQube:

Now to start SonarQube we need to do following: Switch to sonar user

sudo su sonar

Move to the script directory

cd /opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/

Run the script to start SonarQube

./sonar.sh start

We can also add this in service and can run as a service.

3. Check SonarQube Running Status:

To check if sonaqube is running enter below command,

./sonar.sh status

Output:

sonar@fosstechnix:~/bin/linux-x86-64$ ./sonar.sh status
SonarQube is running (75745).

4. SonarQube Logs:

To check sonarqube logs, navigate to /opt/sonarqube/logs/sonar.log directory

tail /opt/sonarqube/logs/sonar.log

Output:

sonar@fosstechnix:~/bin/linux-x86-64$ tail /opt/sonarqube/logs/sonar.log
2019.09.21 05:26:57 INFO app[][o.s.a.SchedulerImpl] Waiting for Elasticsearch to be up and running
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM warning: Option UseConcMarkSweepGC was deprecated in version 9.0 and will likely be removed in a future release.
/postgresql/postgresql-42.2.5.jar org.sonar.server.app.WebServer /opt/sonarqube/temp/sq-process18124143927354381169properties
2019.09.21 05:28:55 INFO app[][o.s.a.SchedulerImpl] Process[web] is up
2019.09.21 05:28:55 INFO app[][o.s.a.ProcessLauncherImpl] Launch process[[key='ce', ipcIndex=3, logFilenamePrefix=ce]] from [/opt/sonarqube]: /usr/lib/jvm/java-11-openjdk-amd64/bin/java -Djava.awt.headless=true -Dfile.encoding=UTF-8 -Djava.io.tmpdir=/opt/sonarqube/temp --add-opens=java.base/java.util=ALL-UNNAMED -Xmx512m -Xms128m -XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -Dhttp.nonProxyHosts=localhost|127.*|[::1] -cp ./lib/common/*:/opt/sonarqube/lib/jdbc/postgresql/postgresql-42.2.5.jar org.sonar.ce.app.CeServer /opt/sonarqube/temp/sq-process11287447210083370759properties
2019.09.21 05:29:08 INFO app[][o.s.a.SchedulerImpl] Process[ce] is up
2019.09.21 05:29:08 INFO app[][o.s.a.SchedulerImpl] SonarQube is up

using about output you will see that sonaqube is up and running successfully.

Step #5: Configure Systemd service

Create a systemd service file for SonarQube to run as System Startup.

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/sonar.service

Add the below lines,

/etc/systemd/system/sonar.service

[Unit]
Description=SonarQube service
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking

ExecStart=/opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh start
ExecStop=/opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh stop

User=sonar
Group=sonar
Restart=always

LimitNOFILE=65536
LimitNPROC=4096

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Save and close the file. Now stop the sonarqube script earlier we started to run using as daemon. Start the Sonarqube daemon by running:

sudo systemctl start sonar

Enable the SonarQube service to automatically at boot time System Startup.

sudo systemctl enable sonar

check if the sonarqube service is running,

sudo systemctl status sonar

Step #6: Access SonarQube

To access the SonarQube using browser type server IP followed by port 9000.

http://server_IP:9000 OR http://localhost:9000

Finally, We have successfully performed all steps to for sonarqube setup..

Troubleshooting

loaded plugin [org.elasticsearch.transport.Netty4Plugin] ERROR: [1] bootstrap checks failed. max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144].

Solution:

Elasticsearch uses a MMap FS directory to store its indices. The default operating system limits on mmap counts is possibly to be too low, which may result in out of memory exceptions. Enter the below command to increase virtual memory value using sudo privileges,

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144

Output:

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=262144
vm.max_map_count = 262144

To set value permanently, update the vm.max_map_count value in /etc/sysctl.conf. To verify after rebooting,

sysctl vm.max_map_count

Conclusion:

In this article, We have performed ,How to Download and Install SonarQube on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS with Configure Sonarqube, Creating Systemd Service and Troubleshooting sonarqube.

10 thoughts on “How to Install SonarQube on Ubuntu 18.04/16.04 LTS”

N.Rushikesh

September 25, 2019 at 9:21 AM

Best article on sonar-qube, you saved my time

Thanks for your efforts brotherrrrr
Bernd

December 9, 2019 at 7:23 PM

Very nice. One small addition to help people after adding SonarQube to systemd: It failed on my machine with “max file descriptors [4096] for elasticsearch process is too low, increase to at least [65535]”.

Adding the two lines

LimitNOFILE=65536
LimitNPROC=4096

in /etc/systemd/system/sonar.service fixed my problem. The SonarQube documentation also refers to that on https://docs.sonarqube.org/latest/requirements/requirements/#Requirements-Linux
- Shivdas Kanade
  
  December 12, 2019 at 12:30 PM
  
  Hello Bernd,
  
  Thanks. Updated article as per your suggestion.
Puja

March 14, 2020 at 2:39 AM

Modify the step 2: postgres=# grant all privileges on DATABASE sonarqube to sonar;
from grant all privileges on sonarqube to sonar;
- Shivdas Kanade
  
  March 14, 2020 at 7:55 AM
  
  Thanks Puja for your suggestion, We have modified it.
Salem Nabeel Salem

June 16, 2020 at 1:43 PM

Great Article Thanks For Your Efforts.
- FOSS TechNix
  
  June 17, 2020 at 1:31 PM
  
  Thanks for your comment.
Aboli Khare

July 3, 2020 at 8:59 AM

I have successfully installed sonarqube and it shows active running status. But it does not open on web browser.
The server is setup in gcp vm instance and the vm has an external ip.
what could be the problem?
- FOSS TechNix
  
  July 6, 2020 at 1:22 PM
  
  Hello Aboli,
  
  Please change sonar.core.serverBaseURL IP in sonar.properties, add sonarqube port in firewall/inbound traffic and restart sonarqube service.
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