Updating Oracle 23c Free Docker, APEX & ORDS

#If you followed my Oracle 23c Free Docker, APEX & ORDS all-in-one simple guide blog some time ago, you may wish to upgrade to the latest versions of

APEX
APEX Patch Set
ORDS

In this case, follow the instructions below.

⚠

IMPORTANT: These are experimental steps & unverified. These are simply a write-up of my notes as I updated my docker container. I will update this blog as future versions come out & I repeat these steps. For now, only use this blog for entertainment purposes and follow the official Oracle Documentation instead. Update 21/12/2023: Tested ORDS & Patches Update process

Issues I encountered:

I ran out of space on my OCI Compute instance, so I assigned it 50GB of Block Storage
I encountered and fixed the MBean Warning message in ORDS
APEX Images were identified as a previous release. I tried various things to no avail (see the chmod idea in the blog). However, after making a coffee it'd magically fixed itself 🤷‍♂️

Prerequisites

Log in to your Workspace and click on the About menu option
Take note of your Product Build, APEX_LISTENER_VERSION and Patch Version (note: Patch Version appears between Schema Compatibility and Last DDL Time but only if it's currently on a patch version - mine is not)
It looks like I'm on APEX 23.1 and ORDS 23.1.4 and I want to upgrade to the latest - which at the time of writing is APEX 23.2 + patch set 2 & ORDS 23.3

Stop ORDS + Install wget

Stop ORDS before we do anything

Now we enter bash
```
  docker exec -it 23cfree /bin/bash
```
Drop into superuser
```
 su
```
Stop ORDS
```
 sh /home/oracle/scripts/stop_ords.sh
```
Take this opportunity to Install wget
```
 dnf install wget -y
```

Update ORDS

This will update ORDS to the latest version

Whilst still as su, update ORDS
```
 dnf update ords -y
```

Upgrade ORDS

 export _JAVA_OPTIONS="-Xms512M -Xmx512M"
 ords --config /etc/ords/config install

Use the following configuration

 Installation Type > Choose option [1]
 Connection > Choose option [1] 
 administrator username > SYS
 password > E

The output will look like this

 Oracle REST Data Services - Interactive Install

   Enter a number to select the type of installation
     [1] Install or upgrade ORDS in the database only
     [2] Create or update a database pool and install/upgrade ORDS in the database
     [3] Create or update a database pool only
   Choose [1]:
   Enter a number to select the database pool to use or specify the database connection
     [1] default      jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/FREEPDB1
     [2] Specify the database connection
   Choose [1]:
   Provide database user name with administrator privileges.
     Enter the administrator username: SYS
   Enter the database password for SYS AS SYSDBA:
 Connecting to database user: SYS AS SYSDBA url: jdbc:oracle:thin:@//localhost:1521/FREEPDB1

Start ORDS
```
 sh /home/oracle/scripts/start_ords.sh
```
Note: if you are upgrading to ORDS 23.3.0 or above and you have followed my Nginx Proxy Manager blog, then in Nginx Proxy Manager, you must edit /ords/ section by clicking the ⚙️icon and remove this line
```
    proxy_set_header Host $http_host:$port;
```

Update APEX

This will update APEX to the latest version

Exit Super User (if in superuser)
```
 [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ] && exit
```

Run this to get the latest APEX (1min)

  curl -o apex-latest.zip https://download.oracle.com/otn_software/apex/apex-latest.zip

unzip it & enter the apex folder (1min)

  # CAREFUL: This removes the apex folder from the original instructions
  rm -r /home/oracle/apex

  # unzip 
  unzip -o apex-latest.zip
  rm apex-latest.zip
  cd apex

Open SQL*Plus with sqlplus / as sysdba

  sqlplus / as sysdba

like this...

  bash-4.4$ sqlplus / as sysdba

  SQL*Plus: Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Developer-Release on Wed Apr 5 13:27:32 2023 Version 23.2.0.0.0

  Copyright (c) 1982, 2023, Oracle. All rights reserved.

  Connected to: Oracle Database 23c Free, Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Developer-Release Version 23.2.0.0.0

Set the PDB

  ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER = FREEPDB1;

Then run the APEX installer below to upgrade APEX
```
  @apexins.sql SYSAUX SYSAUX TEMP /i/
```
Configure Static File Support
```
 @apex_rest_config.sql
```

Use the following configuration

 APEX_LISTENER user > E
 APEX_REST_PUBLIC_USER > E

Exit out of sqlplus when compete
```
 exit
```

Copy the latest APEX images folder to where ORDS expects it

# Backup Images folder / or delete it
mv /home/oracle/software/apex/images /home/oracle/software/apex/images$(date +"%Y%m%d")
# Copy the APEX images folder
cp -r /home/oracle/apex/images /home/oracle/software/apex
# TBC
chmod 777 /home/oracle/software/apex/images/

Install the latest APEX Patch Set

In your browser, go to https://apex.oracle.com/download and check for the presence of the latest cumulative patch set i.e
Click the link, sign in to My Oracle Support and Click Download

You'll see the download window.

Right-click the filename in the hyperlink i.e. p35895964_2320_Generic.zip and copy the link address to the clipboard. It will look like something similar to this:

 # APEX 23.2 Patch 1
 # https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p35895964_2320_Generic.zip?aru=25470420&patch_file=p35895964_2320_Generic.zip

 # APEX 23.2 Patch 2
 # https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p35895964_2320_Generic.zip?aru=25497679&patch_file=p35895964_2320_Generic.zip

 # APEX 23.2 Patch 3
 # https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p35895964_2320_Generic.zip?aru=25536745&patch_file=p35895964_2320_Generic.zip

 # APEX 23.2 Patch 4
 https://updates.oracle.com/Orion/Services/download/p35895964_2320_Generic.zip?aru=25565403&patch_file=p35895964_2320_Generic.zip

Note: you can use the above URLs instead of using the browser to find them

Exit Super User (if in superuser)
```
 [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ] && exit
```

Now prepare a command like this, but change the username, password and URL (the URL needs to be in quotes)

 #!/bin/bash

 # Define variables
 oracleUsername="myOracleUsername"
 oraclePassword="myOraclePassword"
 url="PASTE URL HERE"

 # Use variables in wget command
 wget --http-user="$oracleUsername" \
      --http-password="$oraclePassword" \
      --no-check-certificate \
      --output-document="patchfile.zip" \
      "$url"

Paste in your prepared wget command to terminal and the patch file will download.

 Connecting to aru-akam.oracle.com (aru-akam.oracle.com)
 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
 Length: 357387 (349K) [application/zip]
 Saving to: 'patchfile.zip'

 patchfile.zip       100%[===================>] 349.01K  --.-KB/s

 2023-12-01 21:21:14 (167 MB/s) - 'patchfile.zip' saved [357387/357387]

Unzip it
```
  unzip patchfile.zip
```

Enter the patch folder.

 patchfolder=$(unzip -l patchfile.zip | awk '{print $4}' | grep -o '^[^/]\+/' | sed 's#/$##' | sort | uniq)
 cd $patchfolder

Open SQL*Plus with sqlplus / as sysdba

  sqlplus / as sysdba

like this...

  bash-4.4$ sqlplus / as sysdba

  SQL*Plus: Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Developer-Release on Wed Apr 5 13:27:32 2023 Version 23.2.0.0.0

  Copyright (c) 1982, 2023, Oracle. All rights reserved.

  Connected to: Oracle Database 23c Free, Release 23.0.0.0.0 - Developer-Release Version 23.2.0.0.0

Set the PDB

 ALTER SESSION SET CONTAINER = FREEPDB1;

Then run the APEX installer below to patch APEX
```
@catpatch.sql
```
Copy the patched APEX images folder to where ORDS expects it
```
sudo cp -rf images /home/oracle/software/apex
```

Remove the patch file and patch folder

cd /home/oracle/
rm /home/oracle/patchfile.zip
rm -r $patchfolder

Start ORDS

Finally, start ORDS

Drop into superuser
```
 su
```
Start ORDS
```
 sh /home/oracle/scripts/start_ords.sh
```
Exit Super User (if in superuser)
```
 [ $(id -u) -eq 0 ] && exit
```

Confirm the upgrade

Log in to your Workspace and click on the About menu option
Take note of your Product Build, APEX_LISTENER_VERSION and Patch Version
Success!

What's the picture? I spotted this on a walk near Follifoot. I had to do a double-take when I saw it. Visit Yorkshire!