SonarQube comes out of the box with a complete mechanism to manage security. Configuring security enables to cover two main use cases:

• Manage access rights to resources, information, etc.
• Enable customization (custom dashboards, notifications, etc.) of SonarQube for users

Built-in Security

Authentication

Default Admin Credentials

When installing SonarQube, a unique user gets created:

• Login: admin
• Password: admin

Log in and click on your name (top right of the screen).

LDAP plugin When the LDAP plugin is installed and activated, it is no longer possible for users to change their password. Then, only system administrators can do so through Settings > Security > Users.

Authorization

The way authorization is implemented in SonarQube is pretty standard. It is possible to create as many users and groups of users as required in the system. The users can then be attache (or not) to (multiple) groups. Groups and / or users are then given (multiple) roles. The roles grant access to projects, services and functionalities.

Groups

Overview

A group is a set of users.

To create a new group, go to Settings > Security > Groups > Add new group:

To add/remove users to/from a group:

Special groups

Two groups have a special meaning:

• Anyone is a group that exists in the system, but that cannot be managed. Every user belongs to this group.
• sonar-users is the group to which users are automatically added. This group can be changed through the Global Security Settings (sonar.defaultGroup property).

Roles

Overview

There are 5 different roles, 2 are global, the 3 others are defined at project level:

• Global roles:
  • System Administrators have the ability to perform all administration tasks on the SonarQube instance like global configuration, customization of the home page, etc.
  • Quality Profile Administrators have the ability to perform any changes on quality profiles (since version 3.6)

• Project roles:
  
  • Administrators have the ability to perform administration tasks for the project by accessing its settings
  • Users have the ability to browse the measures and to create/edit issues on the project
  • Code viewers have the ability to view the source code of the project

Note that roles are not cumulative. For instance, if you want to be able to administer the project, browse the measures and browse the source code, you have to be given the three roles: Administrator, User and Code Viewer.

Default project roles

It is possible to configure the system so that when a new project is created, some users/groups are automatically granted roles on this project.

In the example below, once a new project has been created:

• All the users in the sonar-administrators group can administrate (Administrators), access the project (Users) and browse the source code (Code viewers).
• The myAuditor user can access access the project (Users) and browse the source code (Code viewers).

Security Settings

1. Default user group: any new user created will automatically join this group.
2. Force user authentication: this is really the first question that should be answered when setting the security strategy in SonarQube. Can anybody browse the SonarQube instance or do you need to be authenticated?
3. Allow users to sign up online: this means that anybody can access a form to create himself an account in the system. Note that after filling up the form, the user should log in.
4. Import sources: if set to false, source code will not be accessible for any user, to restrict access to source code for some users only, see Code viewers role.

Delegation to an External System

In order to leverage existing enterprise infrastructure, SonarQube provides the capability to delegate authentication and authorization to external systems through plugins:

• LDAP with the SonarQube LDAP Plugin
• Active Directory with the SonarQube LDAP Plugin
• PAM with the SonarQube PAM Plugin
• Crowd with the SonarQube Crowd Plugin

Settings Encryption

Encryption is mostly used to remove clear passwords from settings (database or SCM credentials for instance). The implemented solution is based on a symetric key algorithm. The keypoint is that the secret key is stored in a secured file on disk. This file must only be owned and readable by the system account that runs the SonarQube server, the analysis with SonarQube Runner, SonarQube Ant Task, Maven or from the Continuous Integration server.

The algorithm is AES 128 bits. Note that 256 bits cipher is not used because it's not supported by default on all Java Virtual Machines (see this article).

1. Generate the secret key

A unique secret key must be shared between all parts of the SonarQube infrastructure (server and analyzers). To generate it, go to Settings > Configuration > General Settings > Encryption and click on Generate secret key:

2. Store the secret key on the SonarQube server

1. Copy this secret key in a file:

   sonar-secret.txt

   
   
   

2. Store this file on the machine hosting the SonarQube server (default location:  ~/.sonar/sonar-secret.txt). If you want to store it somewhere else, set its path through the sonar.secretKeyPath property in SONARQUBE_HOME/conf/sonar.properties:

   SONARQUBE_HOME/conf/sonar.properties

   
   
   

3. Restrict its access to the system account running the SonarQube server (ownership and read-access only).
4. Restart your SonarQube server.

3. Generate the encrypted values of your settings

Go back to Settings > Configuration > General Settings > Encryption and generate the encrypted values or your settings:

4. Use these encrypted values

Server side

Simply copy these encrypted values into SONARQUBE_HOME/conf/sonar.properties:

Restart your SonarQube server.

Batch side

Copy the secret key file on the machine running the analysis.

Copy these encrypted values into the analyzer configuration file: sonar-runner.properties, settings.xml, etc. Do not forget to define the path to your secret key as well.

The sonar.password property is not encryptable. See SONAR-4061.

FAQ

I have locked myself out

There is currently nothing that stops you removing from every user and every group the global administrator role. the global administrator role. You then have no other solution than make an manual update in the SonarQube database to get back in control.

I have lost the admin password

In case you lost the admin password of your SonarQube instance, you can reset it by running the following update statement :

This will reset the password to admin.