Housekeeping

Default settings for SonarQube Community Build’s database cleaner.

When you run a new analysis of your project, its branches or pull requests (PRs), some data that was previously available is cleaned out of the database. For example, the source code of the previous analysis, measures at directory and file levels, and so on are automatically removed at the end of a new analysis. Additionally, some old analysis snapshots, PR analyses, and branches are also removed.

Why? While it’s useful to analyze a project frequently to see how its quality evolves, it is also useful to be able to see the trends over weeks, months, and years. When you look back in time, you don’t really need the same level of detail as you do for the project’s current state. To save space and improve overall performance, the Database Cleaner deletes some rows in the database. Here is the default configuration:

• For each project:

  • Only one snapshot per day is kept after 1 day. Snapshots marked by an event are not deleted.

  • Only one snapshot per week is kept after 1 month. Snapshots marked by an event are not deleted.

  • Only one snapshot per month is kept after 1 year. Snapshots marked by an event are not deleted.

  • Only snapshots with version events are kept after 2 years. Snapshots without events or with only other event types are deleted.

  • All snapshots older than 5 years are deleted, including snapshots marked by an event.

• All Closed issues more than 30 days old are deleted (this concerns only Fixed issues).

• History at package/directory level is removed.

These settings can be changed at Administration > Configuration > General settings > Housekeeping.

Even though Housekeeping removes data from the database, you will still need to reclaim free space if your database is not configured to do this as part of normal maintenance.

Dashboards

This setting controls how long dashboard history is kept. You can change it at Administration > Configuration > General settings > Housekeeping > Dashboards.

This retention period applies only to dashboard history. It does not change how long analysis data is kept.

Data collection is enabled by default, with a default retention period of 365 days, which is also the recommended value. The other options are 180 days, 90 days, or a Custom value. If you don’t want to retain any dashboard history, select Custom and set the retention period to 0 days.

Data older than the retention period is automatically deleted.