"System" internal user

SonarQube Server / Community Build
,
1
  • Enterprise Edition
  • v2025.1 (102418)
  • MQR Mode
  • Docker
  • What is the purpose of the internal user named “System”?
  • In which scenario a “System” user would create a project? How may we use this user, is it an admin with login and password?

We encountered a situation where a staff member attempted to create a project via the WebAPI. According to the audit log, the project was created by a “system” user. However, the project was configured in such a way that all administrative personnel were excluded from accessing its administrative settings. As a result, we had to rely on the default “Admin” user to delete the project.

{
  "userLogin": "System",
  "newValue": {
    "qualifier": "project",
    "aiCodeFixEnabled": false,
    "description": "project description",
    "componentName": "meuprojeto",
    "isPrivate": false,
    "componentKey": "meuprojeto",
    "componentUuid": "################"
  },
  "createdAt": "2025-05-21T15:13:41-0300",
  "userUuid": "-",
  "userTriggered": false,
  "category": "PROJECT",
  "operation": "UPDATE"
}
2

Hey there.

I’m not so sure that the project here was created by the System user. The JSON you shared looks like the existing project was updated.

For a number of internal SonarQube reasons, when a user provides something like a new sonar.projectDescription at analysis-time, that update is shown in the audit logs as having been done by the System user (because the description is passed to an internal process, and that is used to update the description)

The project creation itself would have the operation ADD.

{
   "userLogin":"Unauthenticated user",
   "newValue":{
      "qualifier":"project",
      "isEnabled":false,
      "componentName":"test",
      "componentKey":"test2",
      "componentUuid":"d0531142-3028-4acd-9f2f-b64792cd73a0"
   },
   "createdAt":"2025-05-26T10:37:11+0200",
   "userUuid":"-",
   "userTriggered":false,
   "category":"PROJECT",
   "operation":"ADD"
},