Sonar Native Packages Reviews

When you're deploying onto Enterprise Linux distros, having software available in RPM formats is almost always welcomed. It tends to greatly ease installation and lifecycle management of a given tool. This packaging definitely addresses most of the issues with installing Sonarqube vice the ZIP-based install of the naked Java application. Only real shortfalls I've found, to date, are related to running the software on EL7 specifically: * While the RPM includes legacy init scripts, it does not include systemd unit files (easily-enough rectified). The RPM creates a service-account to run things under (sonar) and installs most files as that account. However (at least on EL7), if you just start things up using the default start-scripts, it starts as root. This will prevent the embedded ElastiCache elements from running. So, when you rectify the lack of the systemd unit file, ensure the one you create includes appropriate 'User=' and 'Group=' directives. * Similarly, the embedded Elasticache needs some ulimit tuning. This is also addressable with an appropriate 'LimitNOFILE' directive in your systemd unit file. * The embedded ElastiCache also needs a `sysctl` tune for 'vm.max_map_count' made. Would probably recommend to the package-maintainer to either add an appropriate '/etc/sysctl.d/sonarqube' file to the RPM-manifest or a '%post' script that takes care of things. Similarly, if your EL host has been hardened (and if you're compelled to install this tool on EL, you're likely operating under a hardening-mandate), you will need to ensure that Elasticache's JVM is configured to point to a directory that does not live on a filesystem that has the 'noexec' attribute set. This can be done via the 'sonar.properties' file by adding a line similar to 'sonar.search.javaAdditionalOpts=-Djava.io.tmpdir=/ELASTICSEARCH/TEMP/PATH'