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Managing the TLS certificates on the client side

Managing the self-signed server certificate

Introduction to server authentication

During the TLS authentication of the server, the client requests the server certificate from the server and verifies that this certificate is signed by a CA it trusts by checking its truststore. In case a self-signed server certificate is used, it must be added to the truststore of the client. The figure below shows the certificates involved in the authentication of the SonarQube server by the SonarScanner.

Adding the self-signed server certificate to the trusted CA certificates

For all recent scanners, a common SSL configuration

We are aiming to simplify the SSL configuration for all scanners. This is a work in progress and not all scanners are updated, but we recommend always following those generic steps to be future-proof, and then look at each scanner-specific guidelines on top of it.

All scanners should support a PKCS #12 keystore containing the server or CA certificates to trust (a.k.a. the truststore).

The default location for the truststore is $SONAR_USER_HOME/ssl/truststore.p12 (default value for SONAR_USER_HOME is ~/.sonar). This location can be overridden using the scanner property sonar.scanner.truststorePath

The default password for the truststore is "sonar". This password can be overridden using the property sonar.scanner.truststorePassword

For SonarScanner for Maven, Gradle, CLI < 6.0 , or NPM < 4.0

These scanners are still relying on the Java VM for the SSL configuration.

You can either:

Insert your certificate in the default JVM truststore (something like \jre\lib\security\cacerts). To add the self-signed server certificate to the default truststore, use the JVM tool keytool. The instructions depend on your operating system and you will find many resources online, such as this one for Linux.

See also: Self Signed certificate of DevOps platforms
Provide a custom Java truststore by using the following properties:
- javax.net.ssl.trustStore: path to the truststore file (pkcs12 format is recommended)
- javax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword: password of the truststore.

These javax.net properties are JVM properties, not scanner properties. They should be passed using the SONAR_SCANNER_OPTS environment variable.

For example: SONAR_SCANNER_OPTS="-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore=C:/ssl/truststore.p12 -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=changeit"

On Windows, use forward slashes as path separators.

For SonarScanner for .NET

Add the self-signed server certificate to the operating system truststore:

On Linux and MacOS:
1. Copy the self-signed server certificate to /usr/local/share/ca-certificates
2. Run sudo update-ca-certificates
On Windows: use certutil.
Example:

certutil -addstore -f "ROOT" <path/to/certificate>

In addition, since SonarScanner for .NET invokes SonarScanner CLI, you must add the self-signed certificate to the Java truststore as explained above.

If running the scanner with Docker

If you need to configure a self-signed certificate for the scanner to communicate with your SonarQube instance, the preferred way is to mount a folder containing a PKCS #12 file named truststore.p12 (default password "sonar") under /opt/sonar-scanner/.sonar/ssl.

If you have a PEM or DER certificate, you can use OpenSSL or Keytool to generate the PKCS #12 keystore:

With OpenSSL:

openssl pkcs12 -export -caname sonar -out "truststore.p12" -in "server.pem" -passout pass:"<a password>" -nokeys

With Keytool

keytool -import -storetype PKCS12 -alias sonar -keystore truststore.p12 -file server.pem -storepass "<a password>"

By default, the scanner expects the truststore password to be "sonar", but keytool will not accept such a short password. You'll need to use a longer one and inform the scanner using the -Dsonar.scanner.truststorePassword=<a password> property.

docker pull sonarsource/sonar-scanner-cli
docker run \
    --rm \
    -v ${DIR_WITH_TRUSTSTORE_DOT_P12}:/opt/sonar-scanner/.sonar/ssl \
    -v ${YOUR_CACHE_DIR}:/opt/sonar-scanner/.sonar/cache \
    -v ${YOUR_REPO}:/usr/src \
    -e SONAR_HOST_URL="http://${SONARQUBE_URL}" \
    sonarsource/sonar-scanner-cli \
    -Dsonar.scanner.truststorePassword=<a password> // Not needed if the password is "sonar"

If running the SonarQube scan GitHub Action

If you use the sonarqube-scan-action for your GitHub Action and your SonarQube server has root certificates that need to be recognized by the GitHub runner, you'll need to set the SONAR_ROOT_CERT environment variable in GitHub.

To do this, go to your GitHub repository > Settings > Secrets and Variables and add the SONAR_ROOT_CERT environment variable in PEM format. You can also add it at the level of your GitHub organization (recommended).

If using Azure DevOps

If you have integrated SonarQube with Azure DevOps, define the following environment variable to add the server self-signed certificate:

Key: NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS
Value: path to the certificate

Managing the client certificates

Introduction to client authentication

If mutual TLS is used then both the client and the server authenticate the other party. During the TLS authentication of the client, the client must provide its certificate with the corresponding CA certificate chain (intermediate and root CA certificates) to the server. The client manages its certificates in its own keystore. The figure below shows the certificates involved in the TLS authentication of the SonarScanner by the SonarQube Server.

Defining the access to the client certificates

For SonarScanner for Maven, Gradle, CLI, or NPM

Store the client certificate and CA certificate chain in a keystore file and define the access to this file through the following properties:

javax.net.ssl.keyStore or (for SonarScanner CLI from version 6.0 and SonarScanner for NPM from version 4.0) sonar.scanner.keystorePath: path to the keystore file.
javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword or (for SonarScanner CLI from version 6.0 and SonarScanner for NPM from version 4.0) sonar.scanner.keystorePassword: password of the keystore file.

For SonarScanner for .NET

Store the client certificate and CA certificate chain in a keystore file and define the access to this file through the following properties:
- sonar.clientcert.path : path to the keystore file, must be set in the begin step.
- sonar.clientcert.password: password of the keystore file, must be set in both the begin and end steps.
In addition, set the following options before the end step (for the SonarScanner CLI invocation):
- javax.net.ssl.keyStore: same value as sonar.clientcert.path
- javax.net.ssl.keyStorePassword: same value as sonar.clientcert.password

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