The Oracle company formed a new branch of the DBMS MySQL 9.6.0. Builds of MySQL Community Server 9.6.0 prepared for all major Linux, FreeBSD, macOS, and Windows distributions. In accordance with the release generation model introduced in 2023, MySQL 9.6 is classified as an “Innovation” branch. Innovation branches are recommended for those who want early access to new functionality, are published every 3 months, and are supported only until the publication of the next significant release. In the future, they plan to create an LTS release 9.7, recommended for implementations that require predictability and long-term preservation of unchanged behavior. Following the LTS release, a new Innovation branch will be formed – MySQL 10.0.
The list of significant changes in MySQL 9.6 is exactly the same as the change report in MySQL 9.5. It also mentions the previously noted behavior change in the “innodb_log_writer_threads” parameter, changing the default value of the “binlog_transaction_dependency_history_size” parameter, deprecating the SCRAM-SHA-1 authentication method, and deprecating the “group_replication_allow_local_lower_version_join” and “replica_parallel_type” variables. The general list of fixes is different and contains noticeable changes:
- The audit system has been redesigned, implementing a modular Audit Log subsystem. Changing the audit_log_rotate_on_size system variable now requires AUDIT_ADMIN privileges.
- A new data structure and built-in library of functions have been used to work with sets of Global Transaction IDs (GTIDs) used during replication. The new implementation has higher performance and simplified code.
- InnoDB storage has improved the efficiency of generating unique rowids in tables without primary keys. The problem with incorrect restoration of the state of transactions that had the status “PREPARED” at the time of abnormal termination has been resolved.
- A new option “–container_aware” has been added during startup, which includes determining the CPU and memory limits set in the container.
- Extended replication debugging capabilities have been added.
- SQL functions MD5() and SHA1() are now separated.