This blog post will show how to setup Sonarqube based on Docker. The system consists of the Sonarqube server and a Postgres database. Subsequently, it is shown how to integrate Sonarqube in the Jenkins build.

First of all, we need to pull both the official Docker images for Sonarqube and Postgres. Additionally, we need the ubuntu image as this image will be used to create a volume container.

docker pull sonarqube
docker pull postgres
docker pull ubuntu

As we want to keep database data over the lifecycle of the Postgres container, we have to options. Either we create a volume container or a bind-mount volume. Volume containers are more portable and this is the reason why we are taking this option here. Creating a volume container for Postgres data is done as follows:

docker run -itd --name vc-sonarqube-postgres -v /var/lib/postgresql/data ubuntu

Next, the Postgres container can be created with the volume container as input. Additionally, the arbitrary port 5555 is exposed. This is needed in order to connect via PgAdmin to the database.

docker run --name sonarqube-postgres --volumes-from vc-sonarqube-postgres -p 5555:5432 -e POSTGRES_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword -d postgres

Once, both containers are started and running, a connection to the database can be established via psql:

docker exec -it -u postgres sonarqube-postgres psql

By pressing \q and Enter, psql can be exited again.

A connection via PgAdmin can be established as follows:

Once connected, we need to manually create a database called sonar. Next, we need to run a docker inspect sonarqube-postgres to get the IP of this container. At last, the Sonarqube image can be started with the corresponding Postgres connection information:

docker run -d --name sonarqube -p 9000:9000 -p 9092:9092 -e SONARQUBE_JDBC_USERNAME=postgres -e SONARQUBE_JDBC_PASSWORD=mysecretpassword -e SONARQUBE_JDBC_URL=jdbc:postgresql://172.17.0.3/sonar sonarqube

By starting Sonarqube, the schema with all tables is automatically created. Sonarqube can then be accessed via

http://locahost:9000

That’s all concerning the Docker part to setup a Sonarqube system. All this single steps could be consolidated in a docker-compose.yml. This would be even more convenient. The whole system could then be started with a single command, namely docker-compose up -d.

Next, we are going to look how to configure Jenkins in order to work with Sonarqube. First, we need to install the Sonarqube plugin. Once done, the Sonarqube server has to be configured via Manage Jenkins/Configure System . Get the Sonarqube Docker IP again via docker inspect sonarqube.

Subsequently, a build step for the Sonarqube scanner in the corresponding Jenkins job, can be configured. Note that there are some required analysis properties.

That’s all. Whenever the build job is started, a Sonarqube analysis is conducted. The results are saved in the Postgres database and displayed on the Sonarqube server.