Unable to create an ORDS container from the latest (25.4.0) container image

[chrishoina]

NOTE: Creating this issue on behalf of a user.

ORDS 25.4 when APEX fails to deploy

Notes/observations:

From the logs, it appears that changes have been made to the installation script. I use the command to create the container from the container image:

export ORACLE_PWD=syspassword
podman run -d --name apex-ords --privileged --userns=keep-id:uid=54321,gid=54321 -e DBHOST=host.containers.internal -e DBPORT=1521 -e DBSERVICENAME=freepdb1 -e ORACLE_PWD=$ORACLE_PWD -p 8080:8080 -v /home/oracle/ords_config:/etc/ords/config -v /home/oracle/apex:/opt/oracle/apex container-registry.oracle.com/database/ords:latest

In 25.3.1 this command worked (with the exception of the version):

podman run -d --name apex-ords --privileged --userns=keep-id:uid=54321,gid=54321 -e DBHOST=host.containers.internal -e DBPORT=1521 -e DBSERVICENAME=freepdb1 -e ORACLE_PWD=$ORACLE_PWD -p 8080:8080 -v /home/oracle/ords_config:/etc/ords/config -v /home/oracle/apex:/opt/oracle/apex container-registry.oracle.com/database/ords:25.3.1

Install log: 25.4.0

Testing database connection...
INFO : Attempt 1: Connecting to sys/*****@host.containers.internal:1521/freepdb1 as sysdba...
INFO : Database connection successful.
INFO : The Oracle REST Data Services are not installed on your database.
INFO : Installing The Oracle REST Data Services 25.4.0.
tr: range-endpoints of '.-+' are in reverse collating sequence order
INFO : The ORACLE_USER_PWD variable was not supplied.
       A temporary password was generated for ORACLE_USER_PWD.
       Execute this command to get the generated password:
       docker exec <ORDS_container_name> ords config get --secret db.password
ERROR: The Oracle REST Data Services installation has failed.
2025-12-22T03:52:26Z INFO   ORDS has not detected the option '--config' and this will be set up to the default directory.

ORDS: Release 25.4 Production on Mon Dec 22 03:52:30 2025

Copyright (c) 2010, 2025, Oracle.

Configuration:
  /etc/ords/config

2025-12-22T03:52:30.783Z SEVERE      
Cannot get the password for command option --proxy-user true
Index 0 out of bounds for length 0

Install Log: 25.3.1

Testing database connection...
INFO : Attempt 1: Connecting to sys/*****@host.containers.internal:1521/freepdb1 as sysdba...
INFO : Database connection successful.
INFO : The Oracle REST Data Services are not installed on your database.
INFO : Installing The Oracle REST Data Services 25.3.1.
INFO : ORDS_PWD env var is not set, using generated value a048CqAKV2GJ
INFO : The Oracle REST Data Services 25.3.1 has been installed correctly on your database.
INFO : The container found Oracle APEX version 24.2.0 in the mounted volume.
INFO : The Oracle APEX 24.2.0 is already installed in your database.
INFO : Set plsql.gateway.mode proxied after Oracle APEX was installed.
INFO : Setup standalone.static.path /opt/oracle/apex/images.
INFO : Starting the Oracle REST Data Services instance.
2025-12-22T04:01:53Z INFO   ORDS has not detected the option '--config' and this will be set up to the default directory.

ORDS: Release 25.3 Production on Mon Dec 22 04:01:57 2025

Copyright (c) 2010, 2025, Oracle.

Configuration:
  /etc/ords/config

2025-12-22T04:01:59.940Z INFO        HTTP and HTTP/2 cleartext listening on host: 0.0.0.0 port: 8080
2025-12-22T04:02:00.121Z INFO        Disabling document root because the specified folder does not exist: /etc/ords/config/global/doc_root
2025-12-22T04:02:00.124Z INFO        Default forwarding from / to contextRoot configured.

[1fff]

is this been adressed or is there a workaround for it?

Once your DB has been patched to ORDS 25.4.0 you can no longer use the 25.3.1 container to create your configuration and thus you are basically stranded without a backup of your running config.

[chrishoina]

@1fff I'm checking on this today.

I'm not sure on your latest message though:

"Once your DB has been patched to ORDS 25.4.0 you can no longer use the 25.3.1 container to create your configuration and thus you are basically stranded without a backup of your running config."

The pre-made image should detect if ORDS is installed, and if so, will exit the installation process. Then ORDS should start up. Generally if you are within 1-2 patches of ORDS (e.g. 25.4 - 26.2) everything will work as expected.

We did update the Entrypoint.sh script such that it accounted for the new 26ai versioning. And that was leading to some containers failing to start up. But we patched that ~ 6 months ago. Perhaps that was what you experienced?