Operating system updates for RDS DB instances - Amazon Relational Database Service
Availability of operating system updates

Operating system updates for RDS DB instances

RDS for Db2, RDS for MariaDB, RDS for MySQL, RDS for PostgreSQL, and RDS for Oracle DB instances occasionally require operating system updates. Amazon RDS upgrades the operating system to a newer version to improve database performance and customers’ overall security posture. Typically, the updates take about 10 minutes. Operating system updates don't change the DB engine version or DB instance class of a DB instance.

Operating system updates can be either optional or mandatory:

  • An optional update can be applied at any time. While these updates are optional, we recommend that you apply them periodically to keep your RDS fleet up to date. RDS does not apply these updates automatically.

    To be notified when a new, optional operating system patch becomes available, you can subscribe to RDS-EVENT-0230 in the security patching event category. For information about subscribing to RDS events, see Subscribing to Amazon RDS event notification.

    Note

    RDS-EVENT-0230 doesn't apply to operating system distribution upgrades.

    Note

    If you received RDS-EVENT-0230 for an RDS for SQL Server DB instance, the OS update can't be applied using the apply-pending-maintenance action. For more information, see Applying updates to a DB instance.

  • A mandatory update is required and has an apply date. Plan to schedule your update before this apply date. After the specified apply date, Amazon RDS automatically upgrades the operating system for your DB instance to the latest version during one of your assigned maintenance windows.

Note

Staying current on all optional and mandatory updates might be required to meet various compliance obligations. We recommend that you apply all updates made available by RDS routinely during your maintenance windows.

You can use the AWS Management Console or the AWS CLI to get information about the type of operating system upgrade.

To get update information using the AWS Management Console

  1. Sign in to the AWS Management Console and open the Amazon RDS console at https://console.aws.amazon.com/rds/.

  2. In the navigation pane, choose Databases, and then select the DB instance.

  3. Choose Maintenance & backups.

  4. In the Pending maintenance section, find the operating system update, and check the Status value.

In the AWS Management Console, an optional update has its maintenance Status set to available and doesn't have an Apply date, as shown in the following image.

Optional operating system update.

A mandatory update has its maintenance Status set to required and has an Apply date, as shown in the following image.

Required operating system update.

To get update information from the AWS CLI, use the describe-pending-maintenance-actions command.

aws rds describe-pending-maintenance-actions

A mandatory operating system update includes an AutoAppliedAfterDate value and a CurrentApplyDate value. An optional operating system update doesn't include these values.

The following output shows a mandatory operating system update.

{
  "ResourceIdentifier": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:mydb1",
  "PendingMaintenanceActionDetails": [
    {
      "Action": "system-update",
      "AutoAppliedAfterDate": "2022-08-31T00:00:00+00:00",
      "CurrentApplyDate": "2022-08-31T00:00:00+00:00",
      "Description": "New Operating System update is available"
    }
  ]
}

The following output shows an optional operating system update.

{
  "ResourceIdentifier": "arn:aws:rds:us-east-1:123456789012:db:mydb2",
  "PendingMaintenanceActionDetails": [
    {
      "Action": "system-update",
      "Description": "New Operating System update is available"
    }
  ]
}

Availability of operating system updates

Operating system updates are specific to DB engine version and DB instance class. Therefore, DB instances receive or require updates at different times. When an operating system update is available for your DB instance based on its engine version and instance class, the update appears in the console. It can also be viewed by running the describe-pending-maintenance-actions AWS CLI command or by calling the DescribePendingMaintenanceActions RDS API operation. If an update is available for your instance, you can update your operating system by following the instructions in Applying updates to a DB instance.