Common Tasks

Once your environment is set up, these are the most common tasks you’ll perform during APEX development.

Docker or Podman

The commands below that call docker compose work with Podman too — just substitute podman compose. The project’s own scripts (local-26ai.sh, ./scripts/*.sh) auto-detect the engine, so you don’t need to change anything when running those.

Managing Containers

Start/Stop Containers

# Stop database
local-26ai.sh stop
# You could also run this, but the script will gracefully stop the database
# docker compose stop   (or: podman compose stop)

local-26ai.sh start
# Or
# docker compose start  (or: podman compose start)

ORDS Configuration

Modify ORDS Settings

The ords-config folder in the root directory contains ORDS configuration files. Modify these files and restart the ORDS container to apply changes:

# After modifying config files
docker compose restart ords-26ai   # or: podman compose restart ords-26ai

SSL Configuration

Enable HTTPS for ORDS by creating self-signed certificates. On MacOS and Linux it will also add the certificate to your system’s keychain:

sudo ./scripts/create-self-signed-certificates.sh
docker compose restart ords-26ai   # or: podman compose restart ords-26ai

Access via: https://localhost:8443/ords (Port 8443 instead of 8181).

Maintenance Tasks

Check Database Space Usage

Keep in mind that the FREE database has a space limitation of 12GB. You can check the used space with:

local-26ai.sh used-space

#    CURRENT_GB    LIMIT_GB    PERCENT_OF_LIMIT STATUS
# _____________ ___________ ___________________ _________
#          5.04          12               41.97 OK


# Tablespace                 Total MB    Used MB    Free MB    Pct. Free
# _______________________ ___________ __________ __________ ____________
# SYSAUX                         3440       3158        282            8
# SYSTEM                          690        679         11            2
# USERS                           118         59         59           50
# TBS_PLUGINS                     112         38         74           66
# UNDOTBS1                        103         23         80           78
# TBS_AOP                          77          7         70           91

Shrink Database Files

If your tablespaces have grown larger than the space they actually use, you can reclaim that space with:

local-26ai.sh shrink-space

This can take a while. The script works through several steps, each safe to run repeatedly:

1. Purge audit records – the AUDIT_TRAIL tablespace can balloon to several GB and never shrink back on its own. You are prompted before any audit history is deleted (defaults to yes; non-interactive runs purge automatically).
2. Drop a leftover old APEX engine – after an APEX upgrade the previous version’s schema (e.g. APEX_240200) is left behind and wastes ~hundreds of MB. If one is found you are asked to confirm before it is dropped. This is irreversible, so it is skipped when the script runs non-interactively.
3. Shrink the APEX file repository – uploaded/imported files in FLOWS_FILES leave dead space inside the storage that a normal tablespace shrink can’t reclaim. This is compacted without touching your files.
4. Shrink the tablespaces and resize the datafiles – returns the freed space to your disk.

Caution

All steps are designed to be non-destructive to your apps and data, but the audit purge deletes audit history and the old-APEX drop removes the prior engine schema. These run only after you confirm them. Make a backup first if in doubt.

Disable Archive Logs

For development environments, you might want to disable archive logging. You will be asked if you want to do this in the after-first-db-start.sh script, but you can also run it manually:

./scripts/disable-archive-logs.sh

Manage APEX Account Expiration

Unexpire Accounts

If APEX_PUBLIC_USER or workspace accounts are locked due to password expiration, unlock them with:

./scripts/unexpire-accounts.sh

This is useful after database migrations or when accounts have expired due to time constraints.

Disable Password Expiration

To prevent APEX workspace accounts from expiring in the future:

./scripts/disable-password-expiration.sh

Note

Even with password expiration disabled, users may still be prompted to change their password on their first login after a migration.

Workspace Import/Export

Import All Exports

Automatically import all export files from the ./backups/import/ directory:

./scripts/import-all.sh

This is particularly useful during database migrations when you need to bulk import multiple workspaces and schemas. The script will provide a summary of successful and failed imports.

Fix Workspace Export Issues

When re-importing APEX workspaces, you may encounter issues due to a known bug with group assignments. Fix this automatically:

./scripts/fix-ws-group-ids.sh

This script updates all export files in ./backups/import/ to remove problematic group ID parameters, allowing successful re-import.

Complete Environment Reset

Delete All Data

To start completely fresh (⚠️ ALL DATA WILL BE LOST):

docker compose down        # or: podman compose down
docker volume rm oradata-26ai   # or: podman volume rm oradata-26ai
rm .env

Then follow the setup instructions again.