Changelog

This page lists the changes of each release. Every entry links to its migration guide. The release notes on GitHub hold the pull requests and the contributors.

26.4

Migrate to 26.4

Versions

• DB 23.26.2.0 → 23.26.3.0. The datafiles are compatible, so no dump and restore is necessary. The data dictionary needs one repair command.
• ORDS 26.1.2 → 26.2.2. ORDS upgrades its own schema on the first start.

Data dictionary repair

• New script scripts/repair-ru-dictionary.sh (local-26ai.sh repair-ru-dictionary). A change of the database image does not upgrade the data dictionary. The database keeps the dictionary of the release update that created it, and the in-database JVM stops working without a message. The script finds the dictionary views that are missing, reloads the catalog scripts that create them, and reloads the JVM.
• --check shows the gap. --repair closes it. --summary gives key=value lines for CI.
• One run repairs every release update that your database missed, not only the newest one.
• test-db-upgrade.yml now also proves the repair. The workflow changes the image on the same datafiles, runs the repair, and makes sure that the data, APEX and the dictionary are complete after it.

Space management

• New script scripts/cap-tablespaces.sh. Every datafile gets a size ceiling, so one datafile alone cannot fill the 12GB limit of the Free edition. A PDB that passes the limit does not open, and you cannot correct it from inside.
• create-user.sh sets MAXSIZE on the tablespace of a new schema. USER_TBS_MAXSIZE in .env changes the default of 2G.
• New script scripts/compress-space.sh. It applies Advanced Compression to the tables of one schema.
• create-user.sh gains --compress, which creates the schema with compression.
• shrink-space.sh reclaims TBS_APEX and the audit tablespace. It drops the old APEX version, shrinks the LOB segments, and resizes the datafiles.
• after-first-db-start.sh caps the undo datafile at 2048MB and AUDIT_TRAIL at 1GB. It also creates the UC_AUDIT_PURGE job, which keeps 7 days of audit records.
• used-space.sh gains --summary and --quiet. It reports through the exit code, and the warning threshold moves from 10GB to 9.5GB.
• stop.sh shows a warning if the database is close to the limit. This is the last moment at which you can act.
• drop-user.sh reclaims the tablespace of the user and gains a -y flag.

Podman

• The scripts detect the container engine now, so Podman works without changes. Earlier releases documented Podman, but the scripts called docker directly. The CONTAINER_CLI variable overrides the detected engine.
• CI installs the project with Docker and with Podman on every push.
• The project needs the Compose plugin. The old docker-compose and podman-compose commands are no longer supported.
• install.sh starts the database first and waits for it before it starts ORDS. Podman 5.5 and later do not report the container health status, so one compose up -d for the whole stack never continues.
• The Podman guide names the API socket and the enable-linger requirement.

Secure mode

• New flag install.sh --secure. It sets SECURE_MODE=true in .env.
• Secure installs get bounded APEX session timeouts: 18 hours maximum length and 8 hours maximum idle. Local installs keep the 7-day developer default.
• New variable DEBUG_TO_SCREEN in .env controls the debug output of ORDS. Release 26.3 passed DEBUG to the container, and that name collides with a variable of the ORDS image and stops it.

APEX parameters

• The four parameters that APEX resolves at runtime are set once at the instance level. A workspace without its own override inherits the instance value.
• upgrade-apex.sh uses APEX_INSTANCE_ADMIN.SET_PARAMETER for the instance settings.

Backups

• backup-all.sh resolves the workspace of a schema correctly. It deletes the Data Pump master tables that it creates, because they made every later dump larger. It reports a failure through the exit code.

Other scripts

• A new user gets the create assertion privilege, so the assertions of 23.26.1 are usable.
• after-first-db-start.sh stops the passwords of the database accounts from expiring. disable-password-expiration.sh and unexpire-accounts.sh cover more accounts.
• install-dbms-cloud.sh completes the steps after the wallet.

Documentation

• The documentation follows ASD-STE100 Simplified Technical English.
• New guide: expose the environment with HTTPS through an nginx reverse proxy.
• New guide: retry an APEX upgrade that failed.
• The installation guide is split, so a new user can start faster.

Earlier releases

Release	Headline	Migration guide
v26.3	DB 23.26.2.0, ORDS 26.1.2, new install.sh and upgrade-apex.sh	Migrate to 26.3
v26.2	DB 26.1 and ORDS 26.1	Migrate to 26.2
v26.1	Move to the 26ai database	Migrate to 26.1
v25.3.1	Hotfix for 25.3	Migrate to 25.3
v25.3	DB 23.8 and ORDS 25.2	Migrate to 25.3
v25.1	First public release	Migrate to 25.1