This guide walks through setting up a complete CI/CD pipeline using GitHub Actions with SonarQube for code quality, Nexus for artifact storage, and Tomcat for deployment, all hosted on AWS EC2 instances.

Purpose: Code Quality & Static Analysis

Go to AWS EC2 Console → Launch Instance

Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as AMI

Choose an instance type (Recommended: t2.medium or higher)

Select your Key Pair

Configure security group → allow Port 9000

Launch the instance

Copy SSH command from AWS console

Connect from your terminal:

ssh -i <keypair.pem> ubuntu@

Install the latest version of Java:

sudo apt update sudo apt install openjdk-17-jdk -y java -version

Download and install SonarQube:

wget https://binaries.sonarsource.com/Distribution/sonarqube/sonarqube-10.4.1.87278.zip

unzip sonarqube-10.4.1.87278.zip

cd sonarqube-10.4.1.87278/bin/linux-x86-64

./sonar.sh start

./sonar.sh status

http://:9000

Default credentials: admin / admin

Generate a Sonar Token for GitHub Actions.

Purpose: Artifact Repository

Go to AWS EC2 Console → Launch Instance

Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as AMI

Choose an instance type

Select your Key Pair

Allow Port 8081

wget https://download.sonatype.com/nexus/3/nexus-3.85.0-03-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

tar -xvf nexus-3.85.0-03-linux-x86_64.tar.gz

mv nexus-3.85.0-03 nexus

./nexus/bin/nexus start

http://:8081

Purpose: Deployment Server

Go to AWS EC2 Console → Launch Instance

Select Ubuntu 22.04 LTS as AMI

Choose an instance type

Select your Key Pair

wget https://dlcdn.apache.org/tomcat/tomcat-9/v9.0.112/bin/apache-tomcat-9.0.112.tar.gz

tar -xvzf apache-tomcat-9.0.112.tar.gz

cd apache-tomcat-9.0.112/bin

./startup.sh

Edit /etc/tomcat9/tomcat-users.xml and add:

Go to GitHub Repository → Settings → Secrets and Variables → Actions

Click New Repository Secret and add the following:

Secret Name Description

SONAR_HOST_URL SonarQube Server URL

SONAR_TOKEN Generated Token

NEXUS_USER Nexus Username

NEXUS_PASS Nexus Password

TOMCAT_USER Tomcat Username

TOMCAT_PASS Tomcat Password

In your repository, create a new file:

.github/workflows/ci-cd.yml

Paste your pipeline YAML configuration and commit changes.

Navigate to the Actions tab — your CI/CD pipeline will start automatically on a new push to main.

After successful execution:

SonarQube: Code Analysis Report

Nexus: Stored Build Artifacts

Tomcat: Deployed Application

A fully automated CI/CD pipeline that:

Analyzes code with SonarQube

Stores artifacts in Nexus

Deploys to Tomcat automatically via GitHub Actions