The below is a production-ready docker-compose.yml file to spin up SonarQube Community Build alongside a persistent PostgreSQL database.

docker-compose.yml 

services: sonarqube: image: sonarqube:community container_name: sonarqube depends_on: - db ports: - "9111:9000" networks: - sonarnet environment: - SONAR_JDBC_URL=jdbc:postgresql://db:5432/sonar - SONAR_JDBC_USERNAME=sonar - SONAR_JDBC_PASSWORD=sonar_secure_password volumes: - sonarqube_data:/opt/sonarqube/data - sonarqube_extensions:/opt/sonarqube/extensions - sonarqube_logs:/opt/sonarqube/logs ulimits: nofile: soft: 65536 hard: 65536 db: image: postgres:15-alpine container_name: sonarqube_db networks: - sonarnet environment: - POSTGRES_USER=sonar - POSTGRES_PASSWORD=sonar_secure_password - POSTGRES_DB=sonar volumes: - postgresql_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data networks: sonarnet: driver: bridge volumes: sonarqube_data: sonarqube_extensions: sonarqube_logs: postgresql_data:

⚠️ Critical Prerequisite (Elasticsearch Fix)

SonarQube bundles an internal Elasticsearch instance. By default, most host operating systems limit the number of virtual memory map counts, which causes the Sonarqube container to crash immediately on startup.

Before running the compose file, you must run the following command on your host machine to increase this limit:

sudo sysctl -w vm.max_map_count=524288

To make this change permanent, add vm.max_map_count=524288 to your /etc/sysctl.conf file.

How to Start and Access

  1. Start the services in the background:

    docker compose up -d

  2. Wait a minute or two for the database migrations to finish, then navigate to http://localhost:9111 in your browser.

  3. Log in using the default credentials:

  • Username: admin
  • Password: admin
  1. You will be immediately prompted to change this default password.