SonarQube Community Build | Server installation and setup | Installing from Docker image

Installing SonarQube Community Build from the Docker image

Create volumes to persist data

Creating the following volumes helps prevent the loss of information when updating to a new version or upgrading to a higher edition:

sonarqube_data: contains data files, such as Elasticsearch indexes
sonarqube_logs: contains SonarQube Community Build logs about access, web process, CE process, and Elasticsearch
sonarqube_extensions: will contain any plugins you install and the Oracle JDBC driver if necessary.

Create the volumes with the following commands:

$> docker volume create --name sonarqube_data
$> docker volume create --name sonarqube_logs
$> docker volume create --name sonarqube_extensions

Make sure you're using volumes as shown with the above commands, and not bind mounts. Using bind mounts prevents plugins from populating correctly.

Add the JDBC driver (if using an Oracle database)

Drivers for supported databases (except Oracle) are already provided. If you're using an Oracle database, you need to add the JDBC driver to the sonar_extensions volume. To do this:

a. Start the SonarQube Community Buildv container with the embedded H2 database:

$ docker run --rm \
    -p 9000:9000 \
    -v sonarqube_extensions:/opt/sonarqube/extensions \
    sonarqube

b. Exit once SonarQube has started properly.

c. Copy the Oracle JDBC driver into sonarqube_extensions/jdbc-driver/oracle.

Start the SonarQube Community Build container

Start the SonarQube Community Build container:

either from the command line (docker run) or
from a configuration file (docker compose).

For docker-based setups, environment variables supersede all parameters that were provided with properties. See Docker environment variables for more details.

There is more information about installing and updating SonarQube Community Build plugins inside your Docker volume found on the Install a plugin page.

Port binding

By default, the server running within the container will listen on port 9000. You can expose the container port 9000 to the host port 9000 with the -p 9000:9000 argument to docker run, like the command below:

docker run --name sonarqube-custom -p 9000:9000 sonarqube:10.6-community

You can then browse to http://localhost:9000 or http://host-ip:9000 in your web browser to access the SonarQube Community Build web interface.

Enabling IPv6

When you run your Docker container:

Enable IPv6 in the JVM by setting the JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS environment variable to -Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true.
Enable IPv6 in SonarQube by setting the SONAR_WEB_JAVAADDITIONALOPTS environment variable to -Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true.

See below for instructions depending on the Docker tool used.

With docker-run

Set the environment variables in the docker run command as illustrated below.

docker run -d --name sonarqube \
    -p 9000:9000 \
    -e JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS="-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true" \
    -e SONAR_WEB_JAVAADDITIONALOPTS="-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true" \
    ...  \
   sonarqube

With docker-compose

Set the environment variables in the environment section of the .yml file as illustrated below.

...
environment:
      SONAR_JDBC_URL: jdbc:postgresql://db:5432/sonar
      SONAR_JDBC_USERNAME: sonar
      SONAR_JDBC_PASSWORD: sonar
      JAVA_TOOL_OPTIONS: ‘-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true’
      SONAR_WEB_JAVAADDITIONALOPTS: ‘-Djava.net.preferIPv6Addresses=true’
...

Starting the container by using docker run

Run the image with your database properties defined using the -e environment variable flag:

$> docker run -d --name sonarqube \
    -p 9000:9000 \
    -e SONAR_JDBC_URL=... \
    -e SONAR_JDBC_USERNAME=... \
    -e SONAR_JDBC_PASSWORD=... \
    -v sonarqube_data:/opt/sonarqube/data \
    -v sonarqube_extensions:/opt/sonarqube/extensions \
    -v sonarqube_logs:/opt/sonarqube/logs \
    <image_name>

where <image_name> is:

for SonarQube Community Build: sonarqube
for the SonarQube Community Build Editions: check the tags currently available on the DockerHub page.

Starting the container by using Docker compose

Unless you intend to delete the database and start new when running your image ,be careful not to use -v to docker-compose down and, be careful when running commands like docker system prune or docker volume prune; regardless if you use an external: true parameter, your database volumes will not persist beyond the initial startup and shutdown of SonarQube Community Build.

If you're using Docker Compose, use this yml file example as a reference when configuring your .yml file. In the image tag, use the tag value corresponding to the SonarQube Community Build version you want to use, e.g, to use the 25.2.0.102705 version:

image:  sonarqube:25.2.0.102705-community

Check the SonarQube Community Build image tags currently available on the DockerHub page.

Next steps

Once your server is installed and running, you can access SonarQube Community Build UI in your web browser (the default system administrator credentials are admin/admin) and you're ready to begin analyzing source code.

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