Oracle RDS - Applying Patches

If you look at the document page for the traditional RDS https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Appendix.Oracle.CommonDBATasks.Misc.html says

To deliver a managed service experience, Amazon RDS doesn't provide shell access to Opatch

and they provide a way for you to get the list of already applied patches. Also in https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/Welcome.html they point out that under RDS database patching is AWS's responsibility and not the customer's - that is why you are using the managed service after all.

There is something called RDS Custom that allows you to install custom patches - see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/rds-custom.html - on Oracle RDS databases but there are more limitations than the standard RDS managed service - see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/custom-reqs-limits.html and you wouldn't be getting the full managed service experience.

You can apply custom database patches or modify OS packages on your RDS Custom DB instances.

Hi! Here's some documentation that outlines the process for upgrading the Oracle DB Engine. The process may be either automatic or manual depending on if it is a major or minor version upgrade. https://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonRDS/latest/UserGuide/USER_UpgradeDBInstance.Oracle.html. Let me know if you have any questions!

but i just want to check what patch information is available, is there no option to do that via SQL*Plus

Hello, if you want to get the list of all patches installed currently on the RDS Oracle instance, you can run the following query :-

with a as (select dbms_qopatch.get_opatch_lsinventory patch_output from dual) select x.patch_id, x.patch_uid, x.description from a, xmltable('InventoryInstance/patches/*' passing a.patch_output columns patch_id number path 'patchID', patch_uid number path 'uniquePatchID', description varchar2(80) path 'patchDescription') x;

To get a more detailed output in a format similar to opatch lsinventory -detail, run the following:

$ set long 200000 pages 0 lines 200

$ select xmltransform(DBMS_QOPATCH.GET_OPATCH_LSINVENTORY, DBMS_QOPATCH.GET_OPATCH_XSLT) from dual;