Setup APEX and ORDS

Important

The installation of APEX and ORDS with ansible-oracle is currently experimental.

1. Requirements

1.1. APEX

RDBMS 19c or newer
APEX 20.x or newer is mandatory for RDBMS 19c
Tested with APEX 23.2, 24.1 - may work with older versions as well
Installation is tested with PDB only.
CDB and nonCDB is not supported at the moment.
Download ZIP from Oracle with Playbook patch_download.yml supported for Version 22.1 or newer
APEX only with ORDS - no old APEX Listener

Important Notes:

Primary Note for Oracle APEX Upgrades (Doc ID 1088970.1)

Known Issues:

ADMIN password of INTERNAL Workspace is wrong after APEX upgrade Silent script to reset ADMIN password depends on APEX Release.
There was no reliable solution found for the moment…

1.2. ORDS

OracleLinux 8 or 9 only
Installation with ords.rpm from the Oracle Linux oracle/software repository on yum.oracle.com
Limited database configuration - see documentation

2. APEX Configuration

Important

Install APEX before ORDS - otherwise, the ORDS will not detect and configure APEX.
ORDS is only tested with existing APEX installation.

2.1. Mandatory variables

The following global variables are needed for an APEX installation.

Table 1. Mandatory variables
Value	Description
`oraapex_default_admin_password`	The parameter is mandatory, because it is the only way to configure a password for the admin user at the moment.

Table 2. Optional variables
Value	Description
`oraapex_base`	Default: `{{ oracle_base }}/product` The unzip is done into `{{ oraapex_base }}/apex_<APEX Version>`
`oraapex_default_tablespace`	Default: `SYSAUX` Could be set in each PDB.
`oraapex_default_files_tablespace`	Default: `SYSAUX` Could be set in each PDB.
`oraapex_default_temp_tablespace`	Default: `TEMP` Could be set in each PDB.
`oraapex_image_path`	Default: `/i/` Image path for `apxsilentins.sql`. Could be set in each PDB.

2.2. APEX in PDB

APEX can be installed in each PDB.

Table 3. mandatory Variables in `oracle_pdbs`
Value	Description
`state`	Must be `present`. APEX is only installed in PDBs with `state: present`.
`apex_state`	State for APEX installation. Only `present` supported at the moment.
`apex_version`	Version of APEX. Is used to download the Archive from Oracle.

Table 4. optional Variables in `oracle_pdbs`
Value	Description
`oraapex_tablespace`	Custom APEX Tablespace.
`oraapex_files_tablespace`	Custom APEX Tablespace for files.
`oraapex_temp_tablespace`	Custom APEX temporary Tablespace.
`oraapex_image_path`	Custom image path for `apxsilentins.sql`.
`apex_use_cdn`	Default: `true` Set the APEX `IMAGE_PREFIX` to the Oracle CDN `https://static.oracle.com/cdn/apex/<APEX Version>/`. The images are not loaded from ORDS when the CDN is used.
`apex_patchid`	Patchid for PSE BUNDLE FOR APEX

Important

The example shows the minimum attributes for an APEX installation.
That’s not the minimum needed to create a PDB.

Example oracle_pdbs

oracle_pdbs:
  - cdb: CDB1
    pdb_name: PDB1
    state: present
    apex_state: present
    apex_version: 24.1
    apex_patchid: 36695709

Important

oraapex does not use the default passwords from ansible-oracle.
You have to define them in dbpasswords.

oraapex needs the passwords for APEX_PUBLIC_USER and APEX_REST_PUBLIC_USER.
The keys could be written in lower or upper case.
ords_public_user is not used by oraapex, but could be referenced in oraords_db_pools_password (see ORDS Configuration).

The password of APEX_LISTENER is generated with the password lookup into /tmp/passwordfile on the Ansible controller.

Example dbpasswords for APEX in a PDB

dbpasswords:
  CDB1:
    PDB1:
      apex_public_user: ords123
      apex_rest_public_user: ords123
      ords_public_user: ords123

Important

Do not forget to download the APEX Patch when apex_patchid is set in oracle_pdbs.
The patch is not applied with OPatch. oraapex copies the patch into the APEX software directory and executes catpatch.sql in the PDB.

oraapex expects the archive p<apex_patchid>_<apex_version without dots>0_Generic.zip in oracle_sw_source_local, e.g. p36695709_2410_Generic.zip for APEX 24.1.

Example oracle_sw_patches

oracle_sw_patches:
  - filename: p36695709_2410_Generic.zip
    patchid: 36695709
    version: 24.1
    description: PSE BUNDLE FOR APEX 24.1

2.3. Playbook execution

The installation of APEX is part of playbooks/manage_db.yml.
This allows the creation of custom Tablespaces, Profiles etc. for APEX, without the need to use a dedicated Playbook.

3. ORDS Configuration

Important

The configuration of ORDS is limited to the following variables at the moment.

Table 5. Mandatory variables in `oraords_db_pools`
Value	Description
db_pool	Database Pool. `default` is the default pool of ORDS, all other names are created with `--db-pool`.
service	Database Service Name

Table 6. Optional variables in `oraords_db_pools`
Value	Description
host	Database Hostname Default: `{{ inventory_hostname }}`
port	Listener Port Default: `oraords_default_port` (`1521`)
admin_user	Admin user for the ORDS installation Default: `oraords_default_admin_user` (`sys`)
feature_db_api	true / false (Default)
feature_rest_enabled_sql	true / false (Default)
feature_sdw	true / false (Default)

Table 7. Optional global variables for ORDS
Value	Description
`oraords_apex_image_path`	Directory with the APEX images on the ORDS host (`standalone.static.path`). The role fails, when `<oraords_apex_image_path>/css/apex.css` does not exist. Not needed when APEX uses the CDN (`apex_use_cdn`).
`oraords_apex_image_context`	Context path for the APEX images (`standalone.static.context.path`)
`oraords_java_rpm`	Default: `java-21-openjdk`
`oraords_ords_bin`	Default: `/opt/oracle/ords/bin`
`oraords_ords_config`	Default: `/etc/ords/config`
`oraords_ords_logs`	Default: `/etc/ords/logs`

oraords_db_pools:
  - db_pool: default
    admin_user: sys
    service: pdb1
    port: 1521
    host: "{{ inventory_hostname }}"
    feature_db_api: true
    feature_rest_enabled_sql: true
    feature_sdw: true

The passwords for Admin- and ORDS-User are defined in oraords_db_pools_password.
They are set in a dedicated variable to prevent no_log=true in loops over oraords_db_pools.
Referencing dbpasswords helps to reduce redundancy for passwords.

oraords_db_pools_password:
  default:
    admin_password: "{{ dbpasswords['CDB1']['sys'] }}"
    ords_password: "{{ dbpasswords['CDB1']['PDB1']['ords_public_user'] }}"

3.1. Playbook execution

The Playbook playbooks/manage_ords.yml is used to install ORDS.

Note	`ords install` is executed for each pool and the ORDS service is reloaded on every execution of the Playbook.

Last modified October 19, 2026: ORDS+APEX: some typos and fixes after documentation review (7a905ff5)