Oracle REST Data Services 18.2.0.r1831332

Release Notes

Date: July 2018

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Important Changes to Note

Supported WebLogic Version

Oracle REST Data Services is compatible with Oracle WebLogic 12.2.1.3 and later. It is not compatible with older versions of Oracle WebLogic.

Improved PDB URL Mapping for ORDS_PUBLIC_USER pools

In previous releases automatic URL mapping to each PDB connected to a CDB could be achieved using the db.serviceNameSuffix setting. However this approach requires between 1 and 4 pools per PDB, meaning that it does not scale to large numbers of PDBs. In this release ORDS will detect when it is connected to a CDB and use a single pool to switch between each PDB connected to the CDB. Note this feature only works for ORDS_PUBLIC_USER pools. ORDS_PUBLIC_USER must be installed as a common user in the CDB.

Authenticate Application Express Users with ORDS based REST Services

For APEX based REST Services it has always been possible to authenticate requests using users in the relevant APEX workspace's user repository. This release introduces the same ability for any ORDS based REST Services defined in the database schema associated with the APEX workspace.

HTTP Basic dynamic authentication for PL/SQL Gateway requests

To facilitate customers migrating from Oracle mod_plsql to Oracle REST Data Services, this release introduces support for authentication of database users using HTTP Basic Authentication. This functionality is equivalent to the Basic authentication mode in mod_plsql where the database user name and password are omitted from the mod_plsql DAD.

For performance and security reasons we strongly advise customers not to use database authentication in general. The only way to validate a database password is by creating a connection to the database, which is very expensive. Database passwords are often weak and poorly chosen on the assumption that they are not accessible from the web. The HTTP Basic Authentication scheme lacks a mechanism for terminating (logging out) a user session. The only way to end the session is to close the Browser window/tab.

The only scenario where using database authentication is acceptable is for migrating existing applications from mod_plsql that are reliant on database authentication, and the database is appropriately configured with a strong password strength and expiration policy.

You can learn more about this feature in the tutorial located here.

Changes to Installation in CDB$ROOT

As of release 18.2.0, ORDS no longer installs it's ORDS_METADATA schema into the CDB$ROOT container. Now only the ORDS_PUBLIC_USER common user is installed in the CDB$ROOT (and ALL PDBs connected to the CDB). The ORDS_METADATA schema is installed in each PDB connected to the CDB. This aids future upgrades of ORDS, minimizing downtime as the CDB and PDBs will no longer need to be all taken offline at the same time for an ORDS upgrade.

The installation changes are supported for Oracle database 12.1.0.2 and later in this release.

Disabling/enabling PDB Lockdown Profile during install/upgrade

For Oracle database 12.2.0.1 or later, the installer will check if the PDB initialization parameter PDB_LOCKDOWN contains a PDB lockdown profile. If a PDB lockdown profile exists, then it will disable the PDB lockdown profile during ORDS install or upgrade, and will enable it when the install or upgrade completes.

If you do not want the ORDS installer disabling the PDB lockdown profile during ORDS install or upgrade, then you can set the pdb.disable.lockdown property to false in the ORDS parameter file:

pdb.disable.lockdown=false

Removal of Oracle NoSQL Support

Support for Oracle NoSQL Database has been removed in this release.

Supported Java Version

Oracle REST Data Services requires Java 8 or later. Java 7 is no longer supported. Please consult the documentation for the minimum supported Application Server versions for ORDS.

Changes in 18.2.0

The following changes and enhancements have been made since 18.1.1:

Issues Fixed in 18.2.0

New Features in 18.2.0

Changes in 18.1.1

The following changes and enhancements have been made since 18.1.0:

Issues Fixed in 18.1.1

New Features in 18.1.1

Changes in 18.1.0

The following changes and enhancements have been made since 17.4.1:

Issues Fixed in 18.1.0

New Features in 18.1.0

None

Changes in 17.4.1

The following changes and enhancements have been made since 17.4.0:

Issues Fixed in 17.4.1

New Features in 17.4.1

None

Changes in 17.4.0

The following changes and enhancements have been made since 3.0.11:

Issues Fixed in 17.4.0

New Features in 17.4.0

Known Issues

NoSQL Database Support

Support for Oracle NoSQL Database has been removed in this release.

SODA

JDK Support

Autogenerated REST Endpoints

RESTful Services