Misaligned Cache Path in SonarQube GitLab CI Configuration

SonarQube Server / Community Build
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Description: There is a misalignment between the SONAR_USER_HOME directory and the cached path in the current GitLab CI configuration for SonarQube. This issue may result in ineffective caching, leading to potential inefficiencies in the CI pipeline.

Changes to .gitlab-ci.yml proposed by SonarQube tutorial

image: 
    name: sonarsource/sonar-scanner-cli:latest
    entrypoint: [""]

variables:
  SONAR_USER_HOME: "${CI_PROJECT_DIR}/.sonar"  # Defines the location of the analysis task cache
  GIT_DEPTH: "0"  # Tells git to fetch all the branches of the project, required by the analysis task

stages:
  - sonarqube-check
  - sonarqube-vulnerability-report

sonarqube-check:
  stage: sonarqube-check
  dependencies:
    - get-binaries
    - build
  cache:
    policy: pull
    key: "${CI_COMMIT_SHORT_SHA}"
    paths:
      - sonar-scanner/
      
      
  script: 
    - sonar-scanner
  allow_failure: true
  rules:
    - if: $CI_PIPELINE_SOURCE == 'merge_request_event'
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'master'
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'main'
    - if: $CI_COMMIT_BRANCH == 'develop'

Steps to Reproduce:

  1. Create new project in SonarQube Enterprise Edition 10.6 and go to select analysis method with Gitlab Ci.
  2. On step Create or update the configuration file select “What option best describes your project?Other”
  3. On step 3 of tutorial note the SONAR_USER_HOME variable, which is set to ${CI_PROJECT_DIR}/.sonar.
  4. Observe the cache configuration, which is caching the sonar-scanner/ directory instead of .sonar.

There is a correct pipeline on Documentation page Adding SonarQube analysis to GitLab CI/CD

Expected Behavior: The cache should be properly utilized, speeding up the SonarQube analysis by reusing previously cached data.

Actual Behavior: The cache is ineffective because it is pointing to the wrong directory, leading to no performance gain.

Proposed Solution: Align the cached path with SONAR_USER_HOME to ensure that the cache is utilized correctly. This can be done in one of the following ways:

3

Hello @vlsec,
Thank you for your report.
Inconsistencies in the GitLab CI tutorial have already been noticed and will be fixed in SonarQube 10.7. The cache configuration of the sonarqube-check stage will no longer be included in the onboarding tutorial.

8

Hello @vlsec ,

After careful consideration, it seems we can do better in our tutorials in regards to caching (the cache step is sometimes missing, and when shown shows the wrong cache path, as you pointed out). I’ve created SONAR-23308 to tackle this, and will fix it soon.

Thanks for the call out!

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