The PostgreSQL Global Development Group has announced minor version updates to all supported PostgreSQL versions : 16, 15, 14, 13, and 12. These minor version updates introduce over 55 bug fixes that have been reported in recent months, reflecting PostgreSQL’s commitment to stability and performance. You might have seen our summary of PostgreSQL in 2023, where we mentioned about the announcement of PostgreSQL 16 and End of Life of PostgreSQL 11. In this article, we shall discuss some of the key features or fixes included in the minor version updates of supported PostgreSQL versions announced today on 9th May, 2024.
PostgreSQL community generally releases minor version updates to the supported PostgreSQL versions on the second Thursday of the second Month of each quarter, unless there are critical bux fixes. The last minor version update was on 8th Feb, 2024 that fixed a security vulnerability, over 65 bugs, and also included query planner and logical replication fixes.
PostgreSQL Minor releases announced on 9th May, 2024
PostgreSQL 16.3
PostgreSQL 15.7
PostgreSQL 14.12
PostgreSQL 13.15
PostgreSQL 12.19 – End Of Life after 14th Nov, 2024
Release Summary for Versions 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3
Security Vulnerabilities and other Security related fixes
CVE-2024-4317 : The visibility of the pg_stats_ext and pg_stats_ext_exprs views has been modified to restrict them to the table owner, addressing a security vulnerability that allowed unauthorized data access. Fixed in versions: 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
Bug Fixes and Improvements
When using an Insert to a Table with domain over array or composite types, the result is broken as the data is retrieved with additional brackets. This has been fixed in releases : 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
The MERGE command has been updated to require SELECT privilege on the target table even when using a DO NOTHING clause, closing a loophole where no privileges were needed. Fixed in versions: 15.7, 16.3.
Partitioning and Indexing
Corrections to the pruning of NULL partitions in tables partitioned on a boolean column, and sequences owned by a foreign table are now moved along with the table during schema changes. Applicable to versions: 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
Query Planning and Execution
Numerous adjustments have been made to improve the accuracy and efficiency of query planning and execution, including fixing EXPLAIN output, preventing deadlocks during the cleanup of orphaned temporary tables, and avoiding unnecessary moving-aggregate modes in window functions. Applicable to versions: 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
Administrative and Interface Changes
Tools and Utilities: PostgreSQL utilities like pg_dumpall have seen improvements ensuring that role comments are dumped correctly and enhancing the thread safety of error reporting on Windows platforms. Applicable to versions: 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
Foreign Data Wrappers and Extensions: Adjustments in postgres_fdw to handle time zones and sort operations more accurately, and deprecated functions in libxml2 have been replaced in the xml2 extension. Applicable to versions: 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
Performance Enhancements
Optimizer Enhancements: Several fixes were introduced to prevent incorrect optimizations and to enhance the overall performance of the optimizer, particularly in handling joins and sub-plans. Applicable to versions: 15.7, 16.3.
Other Enhancements
Enhanced error messaging for ALTER TABLE … ALTER COLUMN TYPE when dependent functions or publications are present, and fixed integer overflow detection when adding/subtracting intervals to/from timestamps. Applicable to versions: 12.19, 13.15, 14.12, 15.7, 16.3.
Error Handling and System Stability: Improved error reporting and fixed potential crashes and memory leaks, ensuring greater stability and reliability of the database system.
EOL Versions
PostgreSQL Global Development Group follows a Versioning policy where each Major version is considered as supported for a period of 5 years since its major release. What this means is that the PostgreSQL 11 that got released on October 18, 2018 was already end of life on November 9, 2023. PostgreSQL 12 that got released on October 3, 2019 will be End of Life on November 14, 2024.
So, it is important to plan major versions upgrades if you are still using PostgreSQL 12 or previous versions. If you need any support in upgrading your PostgreSQL versions without any downtime, contact HexaCluster.
We also have an upcoming Webinar on "Simplified PostgreSQL Major Version Upgrades".
Updating your PostgreSQL minor releases
Minor version upgrades are generally easier and faster. However, it is important that you test your minor version upgrades in lower environments, to see if it impacts any of the current application functionalities.
To perform minor version upgrades, you can simply download the latest binaries from the PGDG repository and then restart your PostgreSQL Clusters.
Conclusion
Every Major PostgreSQL version includes a large amount of features and improvements that directly improve performance with not much effort. Minor versions includes fixes to bugs, security vulnerabilities, other improvements that are recommended to be applied as soon as they are announced. At the same time, performance of a PostgreSQL cluster not only depends on the versions but also the way you have tuned the configuration parameters for the workload and also implemented correct Indexing strategies, and other tuning techniques that are appropriate for PostgreSQL.
If you need any support Upgrading your PostgreSQL versions or Optimizing your PostgreSQL databases, do not hesitate to contact HexaCluster, a team of PostgreSQL experts and contributors.
Subscribe to our Newsletters and Stay tuned for more interesting topics.
