Installing from the ZIP file

Explains how to install SonarQube Server from the ZIP file.

First, check the SonarQube Server host (in particular, make sure the correct Java version 17 is installed) and perform the On Linux systems. Then follow these steps for your installation:

Download the distribution

Download and unzip the distribution (do not unzip into a directory starting with a digit).

<sonarqubeHome> (below) refers to the path of the directory where the SonarQube Server’s distribution has been unzipped.

Perform various settings

Set access to the database

Edit <sonarqubeHome>/conf/sonar.properties to configure the database settings. Templates are available for every supported database. Just uncomment and configure the template you need and comment out the lines dedicated to H2:

Example for PostgreSQL
sonar.jdbc.username=sonarqube
sonar.jdbc.password=mypassword
sonar.jdbc.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost/sonarqube

Add the JDBC driver

Drivers for the supported databases (except Oracle) are already provided. Do not replace the provided drivers; they are the only ones supported.

For Oracle, copy the JDBC driver into <sonarqubeHome>/extensions/jdbc-driver/oracle.

Configure the Elasticsearch storage path

By default, Elasticsearch data is stored in <sonarqubeHome>/data, but this is not recommended for production instances. Instead, you should store this data elsewhere, ideally in a dedicated volume with fast I/O. In addition to maintaining performance, upgrading your instance of SonarQube Server will be easier.

Edit <sonarqubeHome>/conf/sonar.properties to configure the following settings:

sonar.path.data=/var/sonarqube/data
sonar.path.temp=/var/sonarqube/temp

The user launching SonarQube Server must have read and write access to those directories.

Adjust the Java executable path

By default, the scripts will use the Java executable available in the PATH. If multiple versions of Java are installed on your server, you may need to explicitly define which version is used.

It is possible to overwrite the default Java executable by setting the environmental variable SONAR_JAVA_PATH.

Linux

export SONAR_JAVA_PATH="path/to/java_home/bin/java"

Windows

setx SONAR_JAVA_PATH "C:\Program Files\java_home\bin\java.exe"

Start the web server

1. Execute the following script to start the server:

   • On Linux: <sonarqubeHome>/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh start

   • On macOS: <sonarqubeHome>/bin/macosx-universal-64/sonar.sh start

   • On Windows: <sonarqubeHome>\bin\windows-x86-64\StartSonar.bat

2. You can now open SonarQube Server at http://localhost:9000 (the default system administrator credentials are admin/admin).

3. Once your server is installed and running, you’re ready to begin Project analysis setup.

Post-installation steps

You can encrypt sensitive properties stored in <sonarqubeHome>/conf/sonar.properties. See Settings encryption.