# Deploy SonarQube on Kubernetes

*This part of the Documentation is only valid for Community, Developer, and Enterprise Editions. For information on deploying the Data Center Edition of SonarQube on Kubernetes,* see [deploy-a-sonarqube-cluster-on-kubernetes](https://docs.sonarsource.com/sonarqube-server/10.0/setup-and-upgrade/deploy-on-kubernetes/deploy-a-sonarqube-cluster-on-kubernetes "mention") documentation\*.\*

## Overview <a href="#overview" id="overview"></a>

You can find the SonarQube Helm chart on [GitHub](https://github.com/SonarSource/helm-chart-sonarqube/tree/master/charts/sonarqube).

Your feedback is welcome at [our community forum](https://community.sonarsource.com/).

## Kubernetes environment recommendations <a href="#kubernetes-environment-recommendations" id="kubernetes-environment-recommendations"></a>

When you want to operate SonarQube on Kubernetes, consider the following recommendations.

### Prerequisites <a href="#prerequisites" id="prerequisites"></a>

**Supported versions**

The SonarQube helm chart should only be used with the latest version of SonarQube and a supported version of Kubernetes. There is a dedicated helm chart for the LTS version of SonarQube that follows the same patch policy as the application, while also being compatible with the supported versions of Kubernetes.

### Pod Security Standards <a href="#pod-security-standards" id="pod-security-standards"></a>

The following [Pod Security levels](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/security/pod-security-admission/#pod-security-levels) cannot be used in combination with SonarQube’s chart:

* **Baseline**. The "init-sysctl" container requires `securityContext.privileged=true`.
* **Restricted**. In addition to the previous requirement,
  * The "sonarqube-postgresql", "wait-for-db", "init-sysctl", and "sonarqube" containers require `securityContext.allowPrivilegeEscalation=true`, unrestricted capabilities, running as root, and a seccompProfile different from "RuntimeDefault" or "Localhost".

### Installation <a href="#installation" id="installation"></a>

Currently, only Helm 3 is supported.

To install the Helm Chart from our Helm Repository, you can use the following commands:

```css-79elbk
helm repo add sonarqube https://SonarSource.github.io/helm-chart-sonarqube
helm repo update
kubectl create namespace sonarqube
helm upgrade --install -n sonarqube sonarqube sonarqube/sonarqube
```

### Persistency <a href="#persistency" id="persistency"></a>

SonarQube comes with a bundled Elasticsearch and, as Elasticsearch is stateful, so is SonarQube. There is an option to persist the Elasticsearch indexes in a Persistent Volume, but with regular killing operations by the Kubernetes Cluster, these indexes can be corrupted. By default, persistency is disabled in the Helm chart.

Enabling persistency decreases the startup time of the SonarQube Pod significantly, but you are risking corrupting your Elasticsearch index. You can enable persistency by adding the following to the `values.yaml`:

```css-79elbk
persistence:
  enabled: true
```

Leaving persistency disabled results in a longer startup time until SonarQube is fully available, but you won’t lose any data as SonarQube will persist all data in the database.

### Custom Certificate <a href="#custom-certificate" id="custom-certificate"></a>

When you’re working with your own CA or in an environment that uses self-signed certificates for your code repository platform, you can create a secret containing this certificate and add this certificate to the Java truststore inside the SonarQube deployment directly during the deployment.

To enable this behavior, add the following to your `value.yaml` file:

```css-79elbk
caCerts:
  secret: <secret name>
```

**Get Certificate via openssl**

If you already have a running installation of your code repository platform, you can extract the certificate with the following snippet using `openssl`

```css-79elbk
echo -n | openssl s_client -connect <server url>:443 | sed -ne '/-BEGIN CERTIFICATE-/,/-END CERTIFICATE-/p' > cert.pem
```

This certificate needs to be Base64 encoded in order to be added as secret data.

```css-79elbk
Create base64 string
cat cert.pem | base64 | tr -d "\n"
```

Note that you can also use `string-data` here if you don’t want to encode your certificate.

**Create secret**

The Base64 encoded certificate can be added to the secret’s data:

```css-79elbk
apiVersion: v1
kind: Secret
metadata:
  name: <secret name>
  namespace: <sonarqube namespace>
data:
  cert: <base64 string>
```

Then, create the secret in your Kubernetes cluster with the following command:

```css-79elbk
kubectl apply -f secret.yaml
```

### Ingress Creation <a href="#ingress-creation" id="ingress-creation"></a>

To make the SonarQube service accessible from outside of your cluster, you most likely need an ingress. Creating a new ingress is also covered by the Helm chart. See the following section for help with creating one.

**Ingress Class**

The Sonar Helm chart has an optional dependency on the [NGINX-ingress helm chart](https://kubernetes.github.io/ingress-nginx). If you already have NGINX-ingress present in your cluster, you can use it.

If you want to install NGINX as well, add the following to your `values.yaml`.

```css-79elbk
nginx:
  enabled: true
```

We recommend using the ingress-class NGINX with a body size of at least 64MB. This can be achieved with the following changes to your values.yaml:

```css-79elbk
ingress:
  enabled: true
  # Used to create an Ingress record.
  hosts:
    - name: <Your Sonarqube FQDN>
      # Different clouds or configurations might need /* as the default path
      path: /
      # For additional control over serviceName and servicePort
      # serviceName: someService
      # servicePort: somePort
  annotations: 
    nginx.ingress.kubernetes.io/proxy-body-size: "64m"
```

### Monitoring <a href="#monitoring" id="monitoring"></a>

You can monitor your SonarQube instance using SonarQube’s native integration with Prometheus. Through this integration, you can ensure your instance is running properly and know if you need to take action to prevent future issues.

Prometheus monitors your SonarQube instance by collecting metrics from the `/api/monitoring/metrics` endpoint. Results are returned in OpenMetrics text format. See Prometheus’ documentation on [exposition formats](https://prometheus.io/docs/instrumenting/exposition_formats/) for more information on the OpenMetrics text format.

Monitoring through this endpoint requires authentication. You can access the endpoint following ways:

* **`Authorization:Bearer xxxx`** **header:** You can use a bearer token during database upgrade and when SonarQube is fully operational. Define the bearer token in the `sonar.properties` file using the `sonar.web.systemPasscode property`.
* **`X-Sonar-Passcode: xxxxx`** **header:** You can use `X-Sonar-passcode` during database upgrade and when SonarQube is fully operational. Define `X-Sonar-passcode` in the `sonar.properties` file using the `sonar.web.systemPasscode property`.
* **username:password and JWT token:** When SonarQube is fully operational, system admins logged in with local or delegated authentication can access the endpoint.

**JMX Exporter**

You can also expose the JMX metrics to Prometheus using the Prometheus JMX exporter.

To use this option, set the following values in your `values.yaml` file:

```css-79elbk
prometheusExporter:
  enabled: true
  config:
    rules:
      - pattern: ".*"
```

This downloads the Prometheus JMX exporter agent and adds it to the startup options of SonarQube. With this default configuration, the JMX metrics will be exposed on /metrics for Prometheus to scrape.

The config scope here defines a configuration that is understandable by the Prometheus JMX exporter. For more information, please Prometheus’ documentation on the [JMX exporter](https://github.com/prometheus/jmx_exporter).

**PodMonitor**

You can collect metrics on using PodMonitor for Prometheus by defining PodMonitor as follows:

```css-79elbk
apiVersion: monitoring.coreos.com/v1
kind: PodMonitor
metadata:
  name: sonarqube
  namespace: monitoring
spec:
  namespaceSelector:
    matchNames:
    - sonarqube
  podMetricsEndpoints:
  - interval: 30s
    path: /
    scheme: http
    targetPort: monitoring-ce
  - interval: 30s
    path: /
    scheme: http
    targetPort: monitoring-web
  selector:
    matchLabels:
      app: sonarqube
```

### Other Configuration Options <a href="#other-configuration-options" id="other-configuration-options"></a>

While we only document the most pressing Helm chart customizations in this documentation, there are other possibilities for you to choose to [customize the chart before installing](https://helm.sh/docs/intro/using_helm/#customizing-the-chart-before-installing). Please see the Helm chart [README](https://github.com/SonarSource/helm-chart-sonarqube/tree/master/charts/sonarqube) file for more information on these.

## Known limitations <a href="#known-limitations" id="known-limitations"></a>

As SonarQube is intended to be run anywhere, there are some drawbacks that are currently known when operating in Kubernetes. This list is not comprehensive, but something to keep in mind and points for us to improve on.

### Readiness and Startup delays <a href="#readiness-and-startup-delays" id="readiness-and-startup-delays"></a>

When persistence is disabled, SonarQube startup takes significantly longer as the Elasticsearch indexes need to be rebuilt. As this delay depends on the amount of data in your SonarQube instance, the values for the startup/readiness and liveness probes need to be adjusted to your environment. We also recommend taking a look at the default limits for the SonarQube deployment as the amount of CPU available to SonarQube also impacts the startup time.

### Problems with Azure Fileshare PVC <a href="#problems-with-azure-fileshare-pvc" id="problems-with-azure-fileshare-pvc"></a>

Currently, there is a known limitation when working on AKS that resonates around the use of Azure Fileshare. We recommend using another storage class for persistency on AKS.