The latest PostgreSQL updates were released on November 21, 2024, which address critical issues affecting data integrity and system stability.
PostgreSQL Versions Update
The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has released updates for all supported versions: 17.2, 16.6, 15.10, 14.15, and 13.18. Additionally, due to the nature of one of the issues in the previous update release, they have also released version 12.22 for PostgreSQL 12, even though it has reached its end-of-life (EOL) and will not receive further fixes. citeturn0fetch0
Bug Fixes and Improvements
The recent updates include several important fixes for PostgreSQL 17. (Some of these issues may affect other supported versions of PostgreSQL):
- ALTER ROLE and ALTER DATABASE Functionality: Restored the functionality of ALTER ROLE .. SET ROLE and ALTER DATABASE .. SET ROLE. A previous fix for CVE-2024-10978 inadvertently caused settings for roles to not be applied if they came from non-interactive sources, including prior ALTER {ROLE|DATABASE} commands and the PGOPTIONS environment variable.
- Extension Compatibility: Restored compatibility for the timescaledb and other PostgreSQL extensions built using versions prior to the November 14, 2024 release (17.0, 16.4, 15.8, 14.13, 13.16, 12.20, and earlier). This fix reverts struct ResultRelInfo to its previous size, eliminating the need to rebuild affected extensions.
- Logical Replication Slots: Fixed cases where a logical replication slot's restart_lsn could regress to an earlier state.
- WAL File Management: Prevented the deletion of necessary Write-Ahead Log (WAL) files during pg_rewind operations.
- Shared Statistics: Addressed race conditions associated with dropping shared statistics entries, which could lead to the loss of statistical data.
- ALTER TABLE Stability: Resolved a crash issue with ALTER TABLE when checking if an index's operator class options have changed, particularly if the table has an index with a non-default operator class.
For a comprehensive list of changes, please review the release notes at https://www.postgresql.org/docs/release/.
PostgreSQL 12 End-of-Life (EOL) Notice
This release marks the final update for PostgreSQL 12, which has now reached its end-of-life and will no longer receive security or bug fixes. If you are operating PostgreSQL 12 in a production environment, we strongly recommend planning an upgrade to a newer, supported version. For more information, please refer to the versioning policy at https://www.postgresql.org/support/versioning/.
Action Required
If your systems are running versions earlier than those mentioned above, it is crucial to upgrade to the latest releases to maintain security and stability. If you require assistance with the upgrade process or have any concerns, our team is here to support you.