Question About License Usage for Staging/Test Server During Upgrade

SonarQube Server / Community Build
,
1
  • which versions are you using (SonarQube Server Developer edition,
    v10.5.1 (90531))
  • how is SonarQube deployed: Docker
  • what are you trying to achieve
  • what have you tried so far to achieve this

Hello team,

We have an active SonarQube license, and for years we have followed the same safe upgrade workflow:

before updating our production SonarQube instance, we would spin up a temporary test environment with the new version, apply the same license, verify that everything works correctly, and only then switch production to the upgraded version. This approach allowed us to test upgrades without disruptions and without needing a second permanent installation.

However, after our recent upgrade and the purchase of the latest license, the behavior seems to have changed. The software now reports that the license is already in use and is tied to another server, which prevents us from starting a test instance for upgrade validation.

Could you please clarify whether there is still a supported way to perform upgrade testing using a temporary staging/dev server without purchasing an additional license?

If this topic falls outside your area of expertise, could you kindly forward my question to the appropriate specialist?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help and guidance.

2

Hi,

Welcome to the community!

That was never actually a supported way of testing an upgrade.

What you’ve described requires a staging license, which is not included in DE.

You should talk to your sales contact.

 
Ann

3

Thank you for your reply. Do you have any recommendations from your team regarding upgrading the production environment? Surely your clients must have some way to test a new version before switching hundreds of repositories to it?

4

Hi,

This depends on what you’d like to test. You can certainly spin up a staging instance without a license and double-check the interface; you just won’t be able to run analyses.

Alternately, you could spin up the Community Build version that was released just before the commercial edition you’re trying to test. It will give you a fair approximation of the base features, and you’ll be able to run analyses, but of course you won’t have the benefit of testing all the features that commercial editions bring.

 
HTH,
Ann