Installing SonarQube on Ubuntu 24.04

SonarQube is an open-source static analysis platform for continuous code quality inspection — bugs, vulnerabilities, and maintainability issues across multiple languages. This guide installs it on Ubuntu 24.04 with PostgreSQL, sets up SonarScanner CLI, runs SonarQube as a systemd service, and scans both an example project and your own.

Prerequisites: an Ubuntu 24.04 instance, non-root sudo user.

Set Up PostgreSQL

$ sudo apt install -y postgresql-common postgresql -y
$ sudo systemctl enable postgresql
$ sudo systemctl start postgresql
$ sudo -u postgres psql

postgres=# CREATE ROLE sonaruser WITH LOGIN ENCRYPTED PASSWORD 'your_password';
postgres=# CREATE DATABASE sonarqube;
postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON DATABASE sonarqube TO sonaruser;
postgres=# \c sonarqube
postgres=# GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON SCHEMA public TO sonaruser;
postgres=# \q

Install SonarQube

Needs OpenJDK 17.

$ sudo apt update
$ sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk -y
$ sudo apt install unzip
$ java -version

Check the releases page for the current version:

$ sudo wget https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonarqube/sonarqube-25.2.0.102705.zip
$ unzip sonarqube-25.2.0.102705.zip
$ sudo mv sonarqube-25.2.0.102705/ /opt/sonarqube
$ sudo adduser --system --no-create-home --group --disabled-login sonarqube
$ sudo chown -R sonarqube:sonarqube /opt/sonarqube

Install SonarScanner CLI

Check the releases page for the current version:

$ wget https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonar-scanner-cli/sonar-scanner-cli-7.0.1.4817-linux-x64.zip
$ unzip sonar-scanner-cli-7.0.1.4817-linux-x64.zip
$ sudo mv sonar-scanner-7.0.1.4817-linux-x64/ /opt/sonarscanner
$ sudo nano /opt/sonarscanner/conf/sonar-scanner.properties

Set:

sonar.host.url=127.0.0.1

$ sudo chmod +x /opt/sonarscanner/bin/sonar-scanner
$ sudo ln -s /opt/sonarscanner/bin/sonar-scanner /usr/local/bin/sonar-scanner
$ sonar-scanner -v

Configure SonarQube

$ sudo nano /opt/sonarqube/conf/sonar.properties

sonar.jdbc.username=sonaruser
sonar.jdbc.password=your_password
sonar.jdbc.url=jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/sonarqube
sonar.web.javaAdditionalOpts=-server
sonar.web.host=0.0.0.0
sonar.web.port=9000

System limits — SonarQube's embedded Elasticsearch needs headroom:

$ sudo nano /etc/sysctl.conf

vm.max_map_count=524288
fs.file-max=131072

$ sudo nano /etc/security/limits.d/99-sonarqube.conf

sonarqube   -   nofile   131072
sonarqube   -   nproc    8192

Firewall:

$ sudo ufw allow 9000/tcp
$ sudo apt install ufw -y && sudo ufw allow 22/tcp
$ sudo ufw reload
$ sudo ufw status

Run as a systemd Service

$ sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/sonarqube.service

[Unit]
Description=SonarQube service
After=syslog.target network.target

[Service]
Type=forking

ExecStart=/opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh start
ExecStop=/opt/sonarqube/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh stop

User=sonarqube
Group=sonarqube
PermissionsStartOnly=true
Restart=always

StandardOutput=syslog
LimitNOFILE=131072
LimitNPROC=8192
TimeoutStartSec=5
SuccessExitStatus=143

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

$ sudo systemctl daemon-reload
$ sudo systemctl enable sonarqube
$ sudo systemctl start sonarqube
$ sudo systemctl status sonarqube
$ sudo reboot now

The reboot applies the sysctl/limits changes cleanly.

First-Run Setup

Visit port 9000 on your server, log in admin/admin, change the password when prompted.
Administration → Security → Users → Create User — a dedicated account for scanning.
Generate a token: options icon in the Tokens column → name it, set expiry, Generate. Copy the token.

Scan an Example Project

$ cd
$ mkdir sonar-example-test
$ cd sonar-example-test
$ wget https://github.com/SonarSource/sonar-scanning-examples/archive/master.zip
$ unzip master.zip
$ cd sonar-scanning-examples-master
$ cd sonar-scanner
$ sonar-scanner -D sonar.token=user-sonar_token

Replace user-sonar_token with your generated token. Check the dashboard for the scan results.

Scan Your Own Project

$ cd myproject
$ nano sonar-project.properties

sonar.projectKey=MyProject:Key1
sonar.projectName=First Project
sonar.projectVersion=1.0
sonar.projectDescription=My First Project
sonar.sources=src

$ sonar-scanner -D sonar.token=<sonar_token>

Next Steps

SonarQube is running with a PostgreSQL backend and validated on both an example and custom project scan. From here:

Put Nginx in front of port 9000 as a reverse proxy with TLS
Wire SonarScanner into CI (GitHub Actions, GitLab CI) for scans on every push
Set quality gates to fail builds on new bugs or vulnerabilities

For the full guide, visit the original article on Vultr Docs.