Can't run Sonar Server caused by Elasticsearch cannot running as root - linux

Question

I'm trying to install SonarQube : i ve followed those steps :
Setting up SOnarQube Tuto : here
To summarize it :
Downloading Sonar and moving it to /opt/sonar
adding those coonfig steps to /opt/sonar/conf/sonar.properties :
sonar.jdbc.username=sonar
sonar.jdbc.password=sonar
sonar.jdbc.url=jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/sonar?useUnicode=true&characterEncoding=utf8&rewriteBatchedStatements=true&useConfigs=maxPerformance
and
sonar.web.host=127.0.0.1
sonar.web.context=/sonar
sonar.web.port=9000
implementing sonar as a service:
sudo cp /opt/sonar/bin/linux-x86-64/sonar.sh /etc/init.d/sonar
sudo gedit /etc/init.d/sonar
Insert two new lines:
SONAR_HOME=/opt/sonar
PLATFORM=linux-x86-64
Modify the following lines:
WRAPPER_CMD="${SONAR_HOME}/bin/${PLATFORM}/wrapper"
WRAPPER_CONF="${SONAR_HOME}/conf/wrapper.conf"
...
PIDDIR="/var/run"
Register as a Linux service:
sudo update-rc.d -f sonar remove
sudo chmod 755 /etc/init.d/sonar
sudo update-rc.d sonar defaults
After those steps : i ve tried to run Sonar from : localhost:9000/sonar and after executing : sudo /etc/init.d/sonar start
`
Strangely , it didsn't run .
SO when i run `sudo /etc/init.d/sonar status , i discover that it goes steps after few seconds , and it throws some error in it log file , like the following :
es.log:
2017.12.09 18:05:14 ERROR es[][o.e.b.Bootstrap] Exception
java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:106) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:195) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:342) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:132) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.execute(Elasticsearch.java:123) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.EnvironmentAwareCommand.execute(EnvironmentAwareCommand.java:70) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:134) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:90) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:91) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:84) [elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
2017.12.09 18:05:14 WARN es[][o.e.b.ElasticsearchUncaughtExceptionHandler] uncaught exception in thread [main]
org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.StartupException: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:136) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.execute(Elasticsearch.java:123) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.EnvironmentAwareCommand.execute(EnvironmentAwareCommand.java:70) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:134) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:90) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:91) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:84) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:106) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:195) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:342) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.init(Elasticsearch.java:132) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
... 6 more
Any suggestions ??

Answer 1

SonarSource has upgraded the Elasticsearch tool used as a part of the latest SonarQube LTS version. As a result SonarQube cannot be run as a root. See this blog and the SonarQube 6.6 upgrade notes and this SO question.

Answer 2

Change the root access to the sonar file. Try running in normal user access.
chown <another user>:<user group> sonar.sh

Answer 3

I was facing the same issue and spend good amount of time before getting the solution.
Error was same as
2017.12.09 18:05:14 ERROR es[][o.e.b.Bootstrap] Exception
java.lang.RuntimeException: can not run elasticsearch as root
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initializeNatives(Bootstrap.java:106) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.setup(Bootstrap.java:195) ~[elasticsearch-5.6.3.jar:5.6.3]
Solution
Create a ‘sonar’ user using adduser command //I was using linux system
chown -R sonar sonar-install-folder/
Edit the sonar.sh file sonar-install-folder/bin/linux-x86-6 in start script and change the #RUN_AS_USER to be RUN_AS_USER=sonar
And then use below commands
./sonar.sh stop
Gracefully stopping SonarQube...
SonarQube was not running.
./sonar.sh start
Starting SonarQube...
Started SonarQube.
./sonar.sh status
SonarQube is running (22100).
So, basically elastic search doesnt require to be run by root user. By default the RUN_AS_USER was commented in the startup script which was picking my current user which was root, and then some linux permission rules come into picture due to which elasticsearch process was not getting up and which was causing sonar process to go down as well.
It was evident from sonar.log
[1]: max virtual memory areas vm.max_map_count [65530] is too low, increase to at least [262144]
2020.05.08 06:36:36 WARN app[][o.s.a.p.AbstractManagedProcess] Process exited with exit value [es]: 78
2020.05.08 06:36:36 INFO app[][o.s.a.SchedulerImpl] Process[es] is stopped
2020.05.08 06:36:36 INFO app[][o.s.a.SchedulerImpl] SonarQube is stopped

Answer 4

Create new user to run the sonarQube or access the SonarQube dashboard
for ubuntu flavour user creation.
#sudo adduser sonar.
after executing the above command it will ask for passwd
#adduser sonar sudo
#adduser sonar admin
#sudo su sonar
chown sonar:sonar sonar.sh