July 2018 Update, Revision, BP and PSU

Hurray, it’s patching day! I know, YOU did look forward to July 17, 2018 as it is patching day again. Last night we released the following Patches: July 2018 Update, Revision, BP and PSU.

July 2018 Update, Revision, BP and PSU

First of all, I’m doing the usual check for the alert and the risk matrix to see whether there’s are really important security patches included. For the risk matrix you’ll have to scrooooooooooolllll down quite a bit as the list of products is strictly alphabetically ordered:

• Critical Patch Update – July 2018 – Patch Advisory
• Risk Matrix for Oracle Database Server, versions 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1, 18.1, 18.2

When you look at the risk matrix you’ll spot two high scored issues: One with Oracle Spatial at 9.8, the other for the core RDBMS at 8.4. Hence, you should consider this patch bundle, especially if you are using Oracle Spatial in Oracle 12.2 or 18c.

Therefore, my next task: I’m checking the patch availability for the database in order to download the correct patches:

• Patch Availability for the Oracle Database (MOS Note: 2394520.1)

Again, you will need to scroll down a bit to section 3.1.4 Oracle Database.

Which Patch Bundles should you take?

As I (and others such as Ludovico Caldara in his excellent blog post series about patching and Oracle Home management) explained already several times, you should take:

• For Oracle 18c: Update (RU)
• For Oracle 12.2: Update (RU)
• For Oracle 12.1: Bundle Patch (BP)
• For Oracle 11.2: Patch Set Update (PSU) for non-Engineered Systems or Bundle Patch (BP) for Engineered Systems

Downloading the July 2018 Patches

And as usual, I apply the patch bundles as soon as possible. Just as I did in previous quarters as well.

For my environments I’m downloading:

• For Oracle 18c: Database Update 18.3.0 Patch 28090523
  
  Find the Readme here. Be aware: the internal document pointers to the paragraphs currently contain an Oracle internal web address. I did ask the responsible people to correct it. Should be done pretty soon I hope.
  .
  
• For Oracle 12.1.0.2: Database Proactive Bundle Patch 12.1.0.2.180717 Patch 27968010
  
  Find the Readme here.
  .
  
• For Oracle 11.2.0.4: Database PSU 11.2.0.4.180717 Patch 27734982 for UNIX
  
  Find the Readme here.
  .
  

I don’t download the bundles including OJVM as none of my databases has an OJVM component installed.

As the download takes a bit, I’ll add another blog post about Applying the July 2018 Patch Bundles.

What If … the link does not work?

Peter Lehmann alerted me that the GI PSU Patch 28183653 has a dead link. And this is true. But there’s a reason for it. Please always have a look into Section 2.2 of Patch Availability for the Oracle Database (MOS Note: 2394520.1).There you’ll find the delayed patch bundles listed.

This list specifies the Expected Date in the rightmost column. I think I don’t need to highlight that this is an expected  – and not a guaranteed date.

The absence of the 18.2.1 Revisions does not hurt as we recommend clearly to use the Updates, not the Revisions unless Oracle Support or the MAA/X- team advices you to apply.

–Mike