sonarqube-licensecheck icon indicating copy to clipboard operation
sonarqube-licensecheck copied to clipboard

SonarQube Licensecheck Plugin

SonarQube License-Check

Sonarcloud Status

Maintainability

This SonarQube plugin ensures that projects use dependencies with compliant licenses. All dependencies and licenses can be viewed per projects and exported to Excel 2003 XML Format. This enables a simple governance of dependencies and licenses for the whole organization.

License

This software is licensed under the Apache Software License, Version 2.0

Compatibility

This plugin is compatible:

  • 5.x version with 8.9 LTS and <= 9.2.x
  • 4.x version with SonarQube 8.x
  • 3.x version with SonarQube >= 7.9 LTS and < 8.
  • 2.x version with SonarQube >= 6.5 and < 7.
  • 1.x versions with SonarQube >= 5.3 and < 6.

For all changes see CHANGELOG.md

Installation

Put the pre-built jar-file (from release downloads) in the directory $SONARQUBE_HOME/extensions/plugins and restart the server to install the plugin. Activate the rules of this plugin ("License is not allowed", "Dependency has unknown license") in your SonarQube quality profiles - otherwise the plugin is not executed.

Execution

When a project is analyzed using the mvn sonar:sonar in command line the extension is started automatically.

Please make sure to have all dependencies installed before launching the SonarQube analysis. So your complete build should look something like this:

mvn -B org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-plugin:prepare-agent -Dmaven.test.failure.ignore install
mvn -B sonar:sonar

Configuration

General Configuration

After booting the SonarQube Server with the License-Check Plugin be found in the tab Administration or also in the Configuration -> LicenseCheck drop down menu.

General Configuration via Administration Tab

  • Within the General Settings and License Check you find the settings for the plugin.
  • Within the general settings the plugin can be manually enabled or disabled. By default, it is enabled.
    • Under "Dependency Mapping" you can map a dependency name/key (with regex) to a license, e.g. ^asm:asm$ to "BSD-3-Clause"
    • Under "License Mapping" you can map a license name (with regex) to a license, e.g. .*Apache.*2.* to "Apache-2.0".

![License Configuration1](docs/Administration_General Settings_License_Check_1.png)

  • Under "Licenses" you can allow or disallow licenses globally and add/edit the list of known licenses.

License Configuration2

  • Under "Project Licenses" you can allow and disallow licenses for a specific project.

License Configuration2

General Configuration via License Menu

Administration -> Configuration(dropdown) -> License Check

alternative License Configuration1

  • Under "Licenses" you can allow or disallow licenses globally and add/edit the list of known licenses.

alternative License Configuration2

alternative License Configuration3

  • Under "Project Licenses" you can allow and disallow licenses for a specific project.

alternative License Configuration4

alternative License Configuration5

  • Under "Dependency Mapping" you can map a dependency name/key (with regex) to a license, e.g. ^asm:asm$ to "BSD-3-Clause"

alternative License Configuration6

alternative License Configuration7

  • Under "License Mappings" you can map a license name (with regex) to a license, e.g. .*Apache.*2.* to "Apache-2.0".

alternative License Configuration8

alternative License Configuration9

General Configuration via SonarAPI

Todo

Activation rules in Quality Profile

You have also to activate the new rules in a (new) quality profile, for each supported language (Groovy, Kotlin, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript) And you have to use this profile for your project.

Step 1

activate 1

Step 2

activate 2

Step 3

activate 3

Step 4

activate 4

Step 5

activate 5

Step 6

activate 6

Step 7

activate 7

Maven

Maven works if your project/module has a pom.xml on its root level (running with Maven, Gradle or SonarScanner).

NPM

NPM works if your project/module has a package.json on its root level (running with Maven, Gradle or SonarScanner).

Gradle

Gradle project should use JK1 plugin https://github.com/jk1/Gradle-License-Report

Note: Please check above link for instructions or follow as mentioned below

Step1: Update build.gradle file with following code for using JK1 plugin

import com.github.jk1.license.filter.LicenseBundleNormalizer
import com.github.jk1.license.render.JsonReportRenderer

plugins {
  id 'com.github.jk1.dependency-license-report' version '1.13'
}

licenseReport {
    allowedLicensesFile = new File("$projectDir/src/main/resources/licenses/allowed-licenses.json")
    renderers = new JsonReportRenderer('license-details.json', false)
    filters = [new LicenseBundleNormalizer()]
}

Step 2: Update build.gradle file with following code for using SonarQube plugin

plugins {
    id 'org.sonarqube' version "3.0"
}

jar {
    enabled = true
}

sonarqube {
    properties {
        property "sonar.host.url", "http://localhost:9000"
    }
}

Step 3: run following command to generate your report license-details.json in build/reports/dependency-license

> gradle generateLicenseReport

Step 4: run following command for SonarQube

> gradle sonarqube

Features

Analysis

The plugin scans for dependencies defined in your project including all transitive dependencies.

Currently, supported formats are:

  • Maven POM files - all dependencies with scope "compile" and "runtime" are checked
  • NPM package.json files - all dependencies (except "devDependencies") are checked
    • Note that transitive dependencies are not scanned unless licensecheck.npm.resolvetransitive is set to true.

Transitive

Project Dashboard

The plugin contains a project dashboard showing a list of dependencies with version and a list of all used licences. Each table shows the status of the license (allowed, not allowed, not found). You can also export the data to Excel.

Project Dashboard