Install SonarQube on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS

Published on June 16, 2021•Updated on November 21, 2023

Introduction

SonarQube is an open-source web-based tool for code quality analysis. SonarQube can analyze a wide range of code in different programming languages through plugins. This guide explains how to install SonarQube on Ubuntu 20.04 LTS.

Prerequisites

Deploy a fully updated Ubuntu 20.04 LTS server at Vultr with at least 2GB of RAM and 1 vCPU cores.
Create a non-root user with sudo access.

1. Install OpenJDK 11

SSH to your Ubuntu server as a non-root user with sudo access.

Install OpenJDK 11.

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

2. Install and Configure PostgreSQL

Add the PostgreSQL repository.

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

Add the PostgreSQL signing key.

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

Install PostgreSQL.

 $ sudo apt install postgresql postgresql-contrib -y

Enable the database server to start automatically on reboot.
```
 $ sudo systemctl enable postgresql
```
Start the database server.
```
 $ sudo systemctl start postgresql
```
Change the default PostgreSQL password.
```
 $ sudo passwd postgres
```
Switch to the postgres user.
```
 $ su - postgres
```
Create a user named sonar.
```
 $ createuser sonar
```
Log in to PostgreSQL.
```
 $ psql
```
Set a password for the sonar user. Use a strong password in place of my_strong_password.
```
 ALTER USER sonar WITH ENCRYPTED password 'my_strong_password';
```
Create a sonarqube database and set the owner to sonar.
```
 CREATE DATABASE sonarqube OWNER sonar;
```
Grant all the privileges on the sonarqube database to the sonar user.
```
 GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE sonarqube to sonar;
```
Exit PostgreSQL.
```
 \q
```
Return to your non-root sudo user account.
```
 $ exit
```

3. Download and Install SonarQube

Install the zip utility, which is needed to unzip the SonarQube files.
```
 $ sudo apt-get install zip -y
```
Locate the latest download URL from the SonarQube official download page.

Download the SonarQube distribution files.

 $ sudo wget https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonarqube/sonarqube-<VERSION_NUMBER>.zip

Unzip the downloaded file.

 sudo unzip sonarqube-<VERSION_NUMBER>.zip

Move the unzipped files to /opt/sonarqube directory

 sudo mv sonarqube-<VERSION_NUMBER> /opt/sonarqube

4. Add SonarQube Group and User

Create a dedicated user and group for SonarQube, which can not run as the root user.

Create a sonar group.
```
 $ sudo groupadd sonar
```
Create a sonar user and set /opt/sonarqube as the home directory.
```
 $ sudo useradd -d /opt/sonarqube -g sonar sonar
```
Grant the sonar user access to the /opt/sonarqube directory.
```
 $ sudo chown sonar:sonar /opt/sonarqube -R
```

5. Configure SonarQube

Edit the SonarQube configuration file.

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

Find the following lines:

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

Uncomment the lines, and add the database user and password you created in Step 2.

 sonar.jdbc.username=sonar
 sonar.jdbc.password=my_strong_password

Below those two lines, add the sonar.jdbc.url.

 sonar.jdbc.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/sonarqube

Save and exit the file.
Edit the sonar script file.
```
 $ sudo nano /opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh
```
About 50 lines down, locate this line:
```
 #RUN_AS_USER=
```
Uncomment the line and change it to:
```
 RUN_AS_USER=sonar
```
Save and exit the file.

6. Setup Systemd service

Create a systemd service file to start SonarQube at system boot.

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

Paste the following lines to the file.

 [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 exit the file.
Enable the SonarQube service to run at system startup.
```
 $ sudo systemctl enable sonar
```
Start the SonarQube service.
```
 $ sudo systemctl start sonar
```
Check the service status.
```
 $ sudo systemctl status sonar
```

7. Modify Kernel System Limits

SonarQube uses Elasticsearch to store its indices in an MMap FS directory. It requires some changes to the system defaults.

Edit the sysctl configuration file.

 $ sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

Add the following lines.

 vm.max_map_count=262144
 fs.file-max=65536
 ulimit -n 65536
 ulimit -u 4096

Save and exit the file.
Reboot the system to apply the changes.
```
 $ sudo reboot
```

8. Access SonarQube Web Interface

Access SonarQube in a web browser at your server's IP address on port 9000. For example:

http://192.0.2.123:9000

More Information

See the SonarQube documentation for more information.