opatch

Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c

Posted on February 23, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 18

It took a while – but now you can find a new MyOracle Support (MOS) Note with a list of Important Recommended Patches for Oracle Database 19c. It is actually a must-read, regardless whether you are upgrading or migration to 19c, or in case you are already on 19c.

Photo by Ani Kolleshi on Unsplash

What do you get?

Please check MOS Note: 2720807.1 – Oracle Database 19c Important Recommended One-off Patches. It gives you a list of important fixes for Oracle Database 19c. In the initial version of the note you could select for each available Release …

Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles

Posted on January 20, 2021 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 40

Groundhog day on the upgrade blog. It’s time for my quaterly Patching all my environments with the January 2021 Patch Bundles blog post. And still no RAC and ASM. Sorry for that … too many virtual events and other tasks since months unfortunately.

Photo by Bofu Shaw on Unsplash

As usual, an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you please patch always out-of-place with a separate home. Please see this blog post about how to apply the RU directly when you provision a new home with OUI.

Security Alert January 2021

Find …

Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0?

I received two emails from different customers within a week – and both asked the same thing: Why is there a lib32 directory in Oracle 19.8.0 and 19.9.0? In one case, it was more like “We are wondering” but in the other case it caused issues during patching.

Photo by Erik Mclean on Unsplash

What happens?

Due to a packaging issue most likely, there is a lib32 directory appearing after you patch your homes to either 19.8.0 or 19.9.0. With the next RU, 19.10.0, this should not be the case anymore.

Why does this sound strage?

The first customer who …

Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on October 22, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 25

I have to confess: Time didn’t allow to rearrange my lab yet to have GI and ASM. Hence, this will be another blog post about Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles with only non-RAC patching. But it is in the works …

Patching all my environments with the October 2020 Patch Bundles

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Security Alert

datapatch and OPatch documentation and MOS note

Posted on July 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 2

Did you ever ask yourself whether there is documentation available for OPatch and for datapatch? It is not easy to find. And you won’t find it under “Database” in the Oracle Bookshelf. So today I would like to guide you in this short blog post to the datapatch and OPatch documentation and MOS note.

datapatch and OPatch documentation and MOS note

Photo by Mike Erskine on Unsplash

OPatch? Datapatch?

Just to recap: You use OPatch (or opatchauto) to apply the binaries to an Oracle installation. As a result, you change the second or the third number of the release from Oracle 19.5.0 to Oracle 19.8.0. But …

Patching all my environments with the July 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on July 15, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 26

Quarterly routine: When the new security alert get published, then it is patching time again. I’ll show you as usual how Patching all my environments with the July 2020 Patch Bundles works. And I heard your comments – in the next round in October, I will do this for GI and OJVM most likely, too. If not earlier …

Patching all my environments with the July 2020 Patch Bundles

Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash

And just an important annotation upfront: I patch in-place due to space issues. But in reality, you please patch always out-of-place with a separate home.

Security Alert July 2020

This is the Security Alert for …

JDK patching happens with every RU since January 2020

Posted on April 22, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 29

A while ago, a customer asked me whether he needs to apply JDK patches separately. He discovered that the JDK in the $ORACLE_HOME is quite outdated. But there was no clear answer available. And the MOS Note he pointed me to, seemed to be quite incomplete. But times have changed. And JDK patching happens with every RU since January 2020.

Photo by David Billings on Unsplash

JDK who?

JDK stands for Java Development Toolkit. As the Wikipedia article explains, “the JDK includes a private JVM and a few other resources to finish the development of a Java Application”. …

OPatch Alert: Be aware of cleanup issues – and the JDK version

Posted on April 17, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Flaws and Pitfalls Patch Recommendation 8

This is just a quick alert blog post for Friday with an OPatch Alert: Be aware of cleanup issues – and the JDK version. And thanks to several people who either commented or mailed me directly and asked if I could alert others as well.

Photo by Hugo Jehanne on Unsplash

OPatch cleanup issue

At first, you may have read earlier this week my article about patching my environments with the April 2020 bundle patches. For my patch activity, I’ve had to exchange my OPatch versions for 11.2.0.4, 12.2.0.1 and 19.7.0. And I guess, I would have had …

Patching all my environments with the April 2020 Patch Bundles

Posted on April 14, 2020 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 54

My quarterly routine happens when the new security alerts get published. And it is time again. I’ll show you as usual how Patching all my environments with the April 2020 Patch Bundles works.

Patching all my environments with the April 2020 Patch Bundles

Photo by Kristin Brown on Unsplash

Security Alert April 2020

Let’s start with the Security Alerts for April 2020. It leads me to the April 2020 Critical Patch Advisory. I’m a database guy, so I’m interested in: Oracle Database Server, versions 11.2.0.4, 12.1.0.2, 12.2.0.1, 18c, 19c. And this link brings me directly to the Risk Matrix for the database products.

You will spot three …

Patching all my environments with the Oct 2019 Patch Bundles

Posted on October 17, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 20

Yesterday I blogged about the Oct 2019 Patch Bundles being available for download. And while I wrote this blog post, I downloaded all of them for my environments. Here I’d like to share with you the most simple path to apply them. As I have no cluster or ASM, I don’t have to patch Grid Infrastructure. And I don’t even have OJVM in any of my databases right now. Due to space constraints in my lab environment I will apply the patches in-place. You shouldn’t do this but instead use always a new home you patch. This allows you …

The newest patching surprises – and how to fix some of them

Posted on September 4, 2019 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 19

Well, there is no Product Manager for patching. And I’m glad that I’m not in this position. But thanks to all of you, internally and externally, who share your findings with me. In this blog post I’d like to inform you about the newest patching surprises – and how to fix some of them.

The newest patching surprises - and how to fix some of them

Patch apply without confirmation?

Peter Lehmann informed me about this a few weeks ago. Peter told me that he patched systems with the July 2019 RU for Oracle 12.2.0.1 and recognized that the patch installed with opatch without waiting for confirmation. It looked as somebody has …

OPatch … oh OPatch … why is datapatch so stubborn?

Posted on December 15, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 14

Well, it is Friday night – and I’d rather should sleep or do something cool people tend to do on Friday night’s. But I try to verify a strange issue with DBMS_OPTIM_BUNDLE and the October 2018 Update for Oracle 12.2.0.1. I’m patching. Can you think of anything better on a Friday night than patching?

OPatch ... oh OPatch ... why is datapatch so stubborn?

Of course I know that I’m not alone. I know at least two customers I work with right now who do some maintenance jobs tonight as well. And I’m struggling with OPatch … oh OPatch … why is datapatch so stubborn?

My test setup

I have …

July 2018 Update, Revision, BPs, PSUs – delays and other issues

Posted on July 20, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 7

This is a Friday morning blog post. And actually I had no intention to write it. I don’t mean it offensive. But yesterday I received an interesting email from Frits Hoogland from Enkitec/Accenture. Frits asked me about the July RUR and some unlogic things on MOS. Once I had answered his email, the next question came in. Hence, I thought I need to write something about our July 2018 Update, Revision, BPs, PSUs – delays and other issues.

From being on stage at last year’s DOAG Conference for a “Patching Forum” I know that things aren’t as …

Patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 5

In this part of my blog post series about upgrading from Oracle 12.2.0.1 to Oracle 18c I’d like to demonstrate patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises.

A while ago I showed also how to patch from Oracle 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 in the Oracle Cloud.

Find the related blog posts here:

Patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises

Before I can start patching to the Release Update Oracle 18.2.0 I need to download the patch …

Why should you use the most recent version of OPatch?

Posted on May 14, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 0

Opatch. A tool nobody really loves but everybody has to use (at least those of you who patch or aren’t in our cloud deployment). Opatch gets distributed via MOS. And you often can apply patches with an older version of OPatch. So why should you use the most recent version of OPatch?

Why should you use the most recent version of OPatch?

First of all, you have a base installation of Opatch in your $ORACLE_HOMEs:

[CDB2] oracle@localhost:/u01/app/oracle/product/12.2.0.1
$ ls OPatch
auto           jlib        opatchauto.cmd  operr.bat         scripts
config         jre         opatch.bat      operr_readme.txt  version.txt
datapatch      modules     opatch_env.sh   oplan
datapatch.bat  ocm         opatch.pl       oracle_common
docs

Patching my databases with the April 2018 PSU, BP and RU

Posted on April 23, 2018 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 29

Patching is fun, isn’t it? And you may have heard already that the April 2018 patch bundles got released on April 17, 2018. And I thought I share a little bit of fun with you with a quick guide to patching my databases with the April 2018 PSU, BP and RU. For this exercise I use our Hands-On Lab with Oracle 11.2.0.4, Oracle 12.1.0.2 and Oracle 12.2.0.1 installed.

Prerequisites for patching my databases with the April 2018 PSU, BP and RU

First of all, in my VBox environment, I shutdown the databases for each release before patching them – …

Applying the first RU for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 4

Appying the first RU for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 The first RU (Release Update) for Oracle 12.2 is available on most platforms since July 18, 2017. And of course I started applying the first RU for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1 as soon as it got released.

See: https://mikedietrichde.com/2017/07/19/first-ru-oracle-12-2-0-1-available/

Download the RU 12.2.0.1.170718 for Linux

First of all I downloaded the Database RU 12.2.0.1.170718 Patch 26123830 for Linux from MyOracle Support. To my absolute surprise it was very small compared to previous Proactive Bundle Patches such as the April 2017 one. It has just 40 MB in size (no typo!).

Applying the first RU for Oracle Database 12.2.0.1

Download the first RU (Release Update) July 2017 for Oracle

Can I apply a BP on top of a PSU? Or vice versa? PART 2

Posted on October 4, 2016 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 4

I thought I won’t blog about this again:

Can I apply a BP on top of a PSU? Or vice versa?

But then a colleague of mine raised this simple question:

“I have a customer that would like to change from patching using PSU to patching using Bundle Patch. I am
wondering what happens if my home has had several PSUs installed. Before applying a BP, would I need to rollback one by one all the PSUs that have been installed in reverse order (tedious) OR only the latest PSU (good)?”

Unfortunately the “simple” solution is hidden deep down in …

Oracle Database BP April16 applied successfully

Posted on April 21, 2016 by Mike.Dietrich Patch Recommendation 13

Usually I don’t post twice a day but as my post scriptum for the previous blog post got longer and longer I decided to write an entry about it – maybe simply because I feel soooo happy that my patch application succeeded flawless.

For many of you the following steps may look very boring as you have done this many times. But I use the blog also to brain-dump information for myself 😉 And for those who’d like to play with it, I summarized the steps fitting exactly into our Hands-On-Lab environment.

Download

I downloaded the following patches:

Database Proactive

Grid Infrastructure PSU Jan 2015 – Am I too intolerant?

Posted on February 18, 2015 by Mike.Dietrich ASM / RAC / GI Patch Recommendation 6

Germans are not only known for being precise and timely – but sometimes also for being too direct. Well, Roy could tell you stories … and I always honor his politeness 🙂

Enough about stereotypes. I work with a customer at the moment on their 12c upgrades. And I did recommend the most recent PSU (Patch Set Updates) for their Grid Infrastructure environments running Oracle Restart. Same of course for the database homes but this blog post will just name some findings I’ve had the other night when trying to apply the January 2015 GI PSU to my …

opatch

What do you get?

Security Alert January 2021

What happens?

Why does this sound strage?

Security Alert

OPatch? Datapatch?

Security Alert July 2020

JDK who?

OPatch cleanup issue

Security Alert April 2020

Patch apply without confirmation?

My test setup

Patching Oracle Database 18.1.0 to 18.2.0 on premises

Why should you use the most recent version of OPatch?

Prerequisites for patching my databases with the April 2018 PSU, BP and RU

Download the RU 12.2.0.1.170718 for Linux

Download

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