SonarQube Community Build installation overview

This section describes the installation of the SonarQube Community Build instance from the ZIP file, from the Docker image, and on Kubernetes.

To try out the SonarQube Community Build platform, follow the Try out SonarQube Community Build guide.

To upgrade your production instance, read the upgrade guide and the relevant, version-specific upgrade notes.

Installation roadmap

Proceed as follows to install your SonarQube Community Build instance:

1. Check the installation requirements,
2. Perform the pre-installation steps. See:
   • On Linux systems
   • On Unix-based systems
   • On macOS systems
3. Install the SonarQube Community Build database.
4. Install SonarQube Community Build and perform a basic setup. You can install it either from the ZIP file or from the Docker image. 
5. If necessary, perform advanced setup.
6. Once your SonarQube Server is installed and running, you can access SonarQube Server UI in your web browser (the default system administrator credentials are admin/admin) and you're ready to begin analyzing source code. 

Instance components

Three components are necessary to run a SonarQube Community Build analysis:

1. SonarQube Community Build running the following processes:
   • A web server that serves the SonarQube Community Build user interface.
   • A search server based on Elasticsearch.
   • The compute engine in charge of processing code analysis reports and saving them in the SonarQube Community Build database.
2. The database to store the following:
   • Metrics and issues for code quality and security generated during code scans.
   • The SonarQube Community Build instance configuration.
3. One or more scanners running on your build or continuous integration servers to analyze projects.

Hosts and locations

For optimal performance, SonarQube Community Build and its database should be installed on separate hosts, and the Server host should be dedicated. The Server and database hosts should be located on the same network.

All hosts must be time-synchronized.