How to Recover SonarQube Admin password | How to unlock SonarQube admin password in Postgres SQL

Let's say you have setup SonarQube using Docker or Docker Compose, you have forgotten the admin password for SonarQube. This article helps you to reset/recover the admin password. If you changed and then lost the admin password, you can reset it using the following steps.

Watch Steps in YouTube channel:

Pre-requisites:

• SonarQube is up and running using Docker image
• Database is either MSSQL or PostgreSQL

As we have configured SonarQube using Docker compose, We need to login to PostgreSQL running inside postgres docker container and execute update command to reset to default password.

Step 1: Login to PostgreSQL docker container

type below command to see the list of containers running in your SonarQube instance.

sudo docker ps

Copy the container ID from above command. 

Now login into PostgresSQL docker container

docker exec -it <container_id> /bin/bash

Step 2:  Connect to PostgreSQL database by executing below command:

psql -p 5432 -d sonar -U sonar -h <container_id>

now enter the password for sonarqube database:

from my lab exercise, password for sonar user is admin123

Make sure it shows sonarqube which is your database schema inside PostgresSQL db.

Step 3: Execute the below query to change admin password to default password which is also admin

update users set crypted_password='100000$t2h8AtNs1AlCHuLobDjHQTn9XppwTIx88UjqUm4s8RsfTuXQHSd/fpFexAnewwPsO6jGFQUv/24DnO55hY6Xew==', salt='k9x9eN127/3e/hf38iNiKwVfaVk=', hash_method='PBKDF2', reset_password='true', user_local='true' where login='admin';

Step 4: Login to SonarQube UI and login as admin/admin

Login as admin/admin

Now it will immediately ask you to change the default admin password to something else:

That's it! That is how you recover SonarQube admin password.

References:

https://docs.sonarqube.org/latest/instance-administration/security/