Features

The SonarQube Scanner is recommended as the default launcher to analyze a project with SonarQube.

Prerequisites

• SonarQube is already installed
• At least the minimal version of Java supported by your SonarQube server is in use
• The language plugins for each of the languages you wish to analyze are installed
• You have read Analyzing Code Source. 

Installation

1. Expand the downloaded file into the directory of your choice. We'll refer to it as <install_directory> in the next steps.
    

2. Update the global settings (server URL) by editing <install_directory>/conf/sonar-scanner.properties:

   #----- Default SonarQube server
   #sonar.host.url=http://localhost:9000
   

3. Add the <install_directory>/bin directory to your path.
   
   

4. You can check the basic installation by opening a new shell and executing the command sonar-scanner -h (on Windows platform the command is sonar-scanner.bat -h) . You should get a message like this:

   usage: sonar-scanner [options]
    
   Options:
    -D,--define <arg>     Define property
    -e,--errors           Produce execution error messages
    -h,--help             Display help information
    -v,--version          Display version information
    -X,--debug            Produce execution debug output

If you need more debug information you can add the sonar.verbose property by adding the command line parameter -Dsonar.verbose=true.

Usage

Simple Project

Create a configuration file in the root directory of the project: sonar-project.properties

# must be unique in a given SonarQube instance
sonar.projectKey=my:project
# this is the name displayed in the SonarQube UI
sonar.projectName=My project
sonar.projectVersion=1.0

# Path is relative to the sonar-project.properties file. Replace "\" by "/" on Windows.
# Since SonarQube 4.2, this property is optional if sonar.modules is set. 
# If not set, SonarQube starts looking for source code from the directory containing 
# the sonar-project.properties file.
sonar.sources=.

# Encoding of the source code. Default is default system encoding
#sonar.sourceEncoding=UTF-8

Run the following command from the project base directory to launch the analysis:

sonar-scanner

Security

Any user who's granted Execute Analysis permission can run an analysis.

If the Anyone group is not granted Execute Analysis permission or if the SonarQube instance is secured (the sonar.forceAuthentication property is set to true), the analysis token of a user with Execute Analysis permission must be provided through the sonar.login property. Example: sonar-scanner -Dsonar.login=[my analysis token]

Project Samples

To help you get started, simple project samples are available for most languages on github. They can be browsed or downloaded. You'll find them filed under projects/languages.

Multi-module Project

There are two ways to define a multi-module structure in SonarQube:

	Using the given file structure...	... with the given 'properties' files
Way #1 Set all the configuration in the properties file in the root folder		"MyProject/sonar-project.properties" file content # Root project information sonar.projectKey=org.mycompany.myproject sonar.projectName=My Project sonar.projectVersion=1.0 # Some properties that will be inherited by the modules sonar.sources=src # List of the module identifiers sonar.modules=module1,module2 # Properties can obviously be overriden for # each module - just prefix them with the module ID module1.sonar.projectName=Module 1 module2.sonar.projectName=Module 2
Way #2 Set the configuration in multiple properties files		"MyProject/sonar-project.properties" file content # Root project information sonar.projectKey=org.mycompany.myproject sonar.projectName=My Project sonar.projectVersion=1.0 # Some properties that will be inherited by the modules sonar.sources=src # List of the module identifiers sonar.modules=module1,module2 "MyProject/module1/sonar-project.properties" file content # Redefine properties # Note that you do not need to prefix the property here sonar.projectName=Module 1 "MyProject/module2/sonar-project.properties" file content # Redefine properties # Note that you do not need to prefix the property here sonar.projectName=Module 2

Noteworthy:

• Children inherit their parent's properties 
  Inherited properties can be overriden:
  
  • By prefixing them with the module identifier (way #1)
  • Simply by defining them in the sonar-project.properties file located in the module (way #2)
    
    
• Module base directory can be specified for special cases
  By default, the module base directory is guessed from the module identifier (like in the examples above). But it can be redefined using the sonar.projectBaseDir property.
  For instance, here are two use cases and how to redefine the base directory of the modules in each:
  

  • the folder of a module contains white spaces or special characters:

    module1.sonar.projectBaseDir=My Module One

      

  • the module is not located directly in the parent folder, but in a deeper directory structure:

    module1.sonar.projectBaseDir=modules/mod1
    module2.sonar.projectBaseDir=modules/mod2

      

To help you get started, multi-module project samples can be browsed or downloaded from github:

• Modules with the same structure: projects/multi-module/sonar-runner/java-sonar-runner-modules-same-structure
• Modules with different structures: projects/multi-module/sonar-runner/java-sonar-runner-modules-different-structures
• A configuration file for each module: projects/multi-module/sonar-runner/java-sonar-runner-modules-own-configuration-file
  

Advanced Usage

sonar-project.properties

If a sonar-project.properties file cannot be created in the root directory of the project, there are several alternatives:

• The properties can be specified directly through the command line. Ex:

  sonar-scanner -Dsonar.projectKey=myproject -Dsonar.sources=src1

    

• The property project.settings can be used to specify the path to the project configuration file (this option is incompatible with the project.home and sonar.projectBaseDir properties). Ex:

  sonar-scanner -Dproject.settings=../myproject.properties

    

The root folder of the project to analyze can be set through the sonar.projectBaseDir property since SonarQube Scanner 2.4 (was previously project.home). This folder must contain a sonar-project.properties file if the mandatory properties (like sonar.projectKey) are not specified on the command line.

Additional analysis parameters can be defined in this project configuration file or through command-line parameters. 

Alternate Analysis Directory

If the files to be analyzed are not in the directory where the analysis starts from, use the sonar.projectBaseDir property to move analysis to a different directory. E.G. analysis begins from jenkins/jobs/myjob/workspace but the files to be analyzed are in ftpdrop/cobol/project1.

sonar.projectBaseDir=/home/ftpdrop/cobol/project1
sonar.sources=src
sonar.cobol.copy.directories=/copy

For more, see the listing of analysis parameters.

Troubleshooting

export SONAR_SCANNER_OPTS="-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m"

set SONAR_SCANNER_OPTS=-Xmx512m -XX:MaxPermSize=128m