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Compare releases and check for compatibility between your existing Octopus Server and new releases.

What's new

These are the most important features you'll get by upgrading from 2023.2.13175 to 2023.4.939

Octopus 2023.4

The 2023.4 release of Octopus Deploy has a number of updates to make your deployments simpler to manage and more resilient.

This release’s noteworthy updates include:

  • More secure connectivity to GitHub and Azure using OpenID Connect (OIDC)
  • Source scripts from Git to maintain them like other assets
  • Resilient Tentacle communications to reduce deployment failures
  • Elevate critical tasks to the top of the task queue
  • Connect tenants to multiple projects in one step
  • Space ID now available on Terraform resources to simplify configuration

The 2023 Q4 release is available on Octopus Cloud and ready for download by our self-hosted customers.

Octopus 2023.3

The 2023.3 release of Octopus Deploy has a number of updates to improve deployment efficiency and speed at scale.

This release’s noteworthy updates include:

  • Easier management of tenants at scale with bulk actions
  • Improved container deployments with support for OCI Helm registries
  • Fewer manual interventions with configurable step timeouts
  • More control over audit logs with adjustable retention
  • Source Kubernetes configuration files from Git for simpler deployments
  • Modify YAML files for Kubernetes with our new Kustomize Step
  • Additional functionality for AKS customers with support for kubelogin for AKS clusters
  • Step template improvements to make updates easier to manage
  • UI performance improvements to the Releases and Create Release pages for a better experience while deploying

The 2023 Q3 release is available on Octopus Cloud and ready for download by our self-hosted customers.

Octopus 2023.2

The latest release of Octopus has new features to make your deployments faster and easier to manage, including:

  • Better visibility across tenants with the redesigned tenant overview dashboard
  • Live updates of Kubernetes objects during deployment
  • Increased success rate of steps with automatic retries
  • More powerful metrics with DevOps Insights improvements
  • Easier deployments to Azure resources with ‘Deploy a Bicep Template’ Step
  • Enhanced security API key security
  • Common components for easier bulk administration and visibility
  • Improved UI performance and navigation in the Octopus portal
  • Polling tentacles over standard ports for reduced complexity
  • Configurable Audit log retention limit for Cloud customers

The release is available on Octopus Cloud and ready for download by our self-hosted customers.

Release notes

These are the features and fixes you'll get by upgrading from 2023.2.13175 to 2023.4.939.

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.4.939

  • 8308 - Improve performance of various API endpoints when querying large sets of data

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.4.808

  • 8304 - Added additional indexes for background processes
  • 8303 - Updated Autofac dependency from v7.0.1 to v7.1.0

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.4.296

  • 8295 - Improved load time for Deploy Release page
  • 8291 - Revert change to runbook tenant selector that caused the Run button to be disabled until unchecking Skip tenants option
  • 8296 - Fixed an issue where index maintenance would fail with "SQL error: Parameter 3 is incorrect for this statement"
  • 8292 - A new Kustomize step is now available
  • 8305 - Introducing new event-based deployment history and runbook run history processes to replace current stored procedure based processes
  • 8289 - Connecting tenants to a project can now be done in bulk and will display the current progress of any ongoing connections
  • 8288 - Fix space switcher not closing when the current space is clicked
  • 8032 - Removed showing of system events in My Recent Activity page

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.11507

  • 8284 - Fixed an issue with Execution Timeouts where warning logs would trigger after task completion
  • 8285 - Adding the ability to source YAML from a Git Repository for the Kubernetes Raw YAML Step
  • 8283 - For better discoverability, we have changed the order of steps, so new steps are displayed first
  • 8279 - Improved Release page load and responsiveness when viewing a release with thousands of deployments
  • 8280 - improve performance when compute tenant promotions
  • 8272 - Fix redeploy tenanted release issue where the option to skip tenants where release is current for a tenant isn't available after explicitly selecting tenants
  • 8268 - Deprecation warnings added to health checks & tasks on Windows 2003 Targets & Workers
  • 8267 - Fix tentacle version checking when installed version is higher than the server comes with

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.10963

  • 8217 - Projects that are not version-controlled can no longer be accessed via version-controlled routes
  • 8281 - Fixed optional secrets not being respected in the Kubernetes Containers step
  • 8277 - Fixed an issue where the frontend assets could sometimes fail to generate new hashes, resulting in incorrect cache hits and chunk loading issues
  • 7668 - Fix the S3 Feed not searching for packages in folders. Make the search case sensitive to match S3 behavior. Add support for any file extension

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.10333

  • 8276 - Fix syntax highlighting for Python in the new code editor
  • 8275 - Ensure owning LibraryVariableSet is referenced in variables modfied audit event
  • 6867 - Fix "User Invites" configuration link flickering when navigating between pages
  • 8274 - Fixes issue with logging in to Octopus Cloud instances using Octopus Id
  • 8269 - Fixes an issue where script editor would be readonly in some Azure steps
  • 8268 - Deprecation warnings added to health checks & tasks on Windows 2003 Targets & Workers
  • 8183 - Allow supplying arguments to container runtime when using action execution containers
  • 8078 - Fix wrong location for "Planning retention policy" in the task log
  • 8265 - Removed invalid options for Container Registry feeds from Azure Web Deploy step
  • 8427 - Adds the ability for trial licenses to generate a sample project from the new welcome dialog
  • 8246 - Updated the wording of the "Event Filters" section on the Subscription page to better convey the behaviour of event filtering in subscriptions
  • 8260 - Fixed an issue when connecting tenants to a project where no environments show up if the project's lifecycle is empty
  • 8261 - Added "Release Notes" item to User menu, which opens new tab showing recent installs and associated changes
  • 8655 - Normalised Invitation and converted document persistence from JSON to relational model
  • 8256 - Updated Autofac dependency from v6.4.0 to v7.0.1
  • 8020 - Mark trigger task as failed when exception happens
  • 8251 - Fix clicks in dialogs sometimes triggering a click on the containing row
  • 8252 - Fix issue where step with single conditional action will be evaluated correctly
  • 8250 - Added a default timeout for machine health checks

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.8714

  • 8244 - Allow multiple tenants to be connected to a project in the same request
  • 8247 - Removing a step package used in channel rule now requires removing the channel rule itself
  • 8254 - Fix expand icon buttons not aligned in the Environment page
  • 8243 - Added Tenants section to all projects which displays all tenants connected to the project and allows connecting tenants from the project side
  • 8253 - Fix project logo background not circular in dark theme

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.8155

  • 8229 - Adds an opt-in feature, ‘Transient Network Error Recovery’, which allows Octopus Server to retry failed communications to Tentacle during Deployments/RunBook Runs for the duration specified in machine policy. This feature is currently only available in Octopus Cloud. OctopusDeploy/Issues/issues/8229
  • 8225 - Added support for authenticating against private GKE clusters

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.7514

  • 8232 - Support null values in variables
  • 8249 - Octopus Server on Linux will no longer attempt to run HTTP.sys in extensions
  • 8165 - Name search for Deployment Targets is now case insensitive

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.6938

  • 8245 - Fix tooltip positions incorrect in Safari
  • 8248 - Log .NET Framework during windows healthcheck
  • 8240 - Fixed error when exporting a project if the project has more than 2100 releases
  • 8242 - Improved performance of deployment preview

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.6319-hotfix.6572

  • 8226 - Fix library variable set usage
  • 8228 - Fix an issue where Octopus.Action.FailScriptOnErrorOutput set to true causes bash scripts to fail
  • 8219 - Fixed issue with Kubernetes Object Status tab not displaying status of objects in Kubernetes that were being updated from child steps

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.6026

  • 8236 - Fixed the bug where customers are not able to turn KOS off when using multi glob pattern
  • 8238 - Fix error when migrating inputs for package step
  • 8190 - Updated Autofac dependency from v4.9.4 to v6.4.0
  • 8234 - Fixed some incorrect layouts in removeable list items
  • 8235 - Moved user session and git repository cache invalidation to SQL database

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.5440

  • 8230 - Fix "unable to find process" error when loading channels
  • 8224 - Improved query performance for DeploymentProcess related documents
  • 8223 - Updated styling of visual feedback for radio buttons
  • 8218 - Add variable Octopus.Deployment.WorkerLeaseCap to manage worker lease cap
  • 8005 - Fix an issue where editing tenant variables require access to all environments and projects due to variable versioning
  • 7961 - The side effects of deleting and renaming a step in the same operation now occur correctly. This includes updating channel rules and project version settings
  • 8215 - Reduced the key size of IX_BuildInformationPackageIdPerSpace and UQ_BuildInformationPackageIdAndVersionUniquePerSpace

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.5049

  • 7957 - When multiple tasks are running on a worker and require the same package, one of them will acquire the package and the others will wait until the single task has completed acquiring the package. Historically they would bottleneck to check for the existence of a package on the worker and extended deployment durations as a result
  • 8212 - Reduced the key size of PK_StepPackage_Id

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.4541

  • 8211 - Fix possible null reference exception when cancelling interrupted server tasks
  • 8210 - Run package acquisition steps if later steps with a run condition of Variable / Always run / Failure in the process require packages, even if previous steps in the deployment process have failed. Packages for variable steps will always be acquired - the variable condition will not be checked for package acquisition
  • 8209 - Reduced the key size of IX_MessageBusCursor_ConsumerGroupId and UQ_MessageBusCursor_ConsumerGroupIdUnique
  • 8207 - "Deploy Kubernetes config map resource" step no longer resets namespace when edited via yaml source

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.4135

  • 8193 - Initial support for OCI registries
  • 8204 - Fix unclickable details button when hovering over action template cards
  • 8205 - Prevent portal on instances with DNS prefix starting with "api" from failing to resolve API URIs
  • 8203 - Use a background task to bulk update step template usages
  • 7426 - Step Templates with high usage counts (1000+) will timeout when using "Update All..."
  • 8201 - Fixed an issue with project search; it now works correctly for projects without descriptions
  • 8202 - Words in the project dashboard will no longer be broken up
  • 8206 - Kubernetes object status check not finishing while all objects are shown as successful
  • 8198 - Fixes CryptographicExceptions thrown due to dotnet runtime updates https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/kb5025823-change-in-how-net-applications-import-x-509-certificates-bf81c936-af2b-446e-9f7a-016f4713b46b
  • 8200 - Fixed a regression that prevented some projects from loading
  • 8182 - Tenants filters have been updated to dynamically expand as new filters are added. Negation filters have been added. The multi-select picker for tags has been updated to allow multiple selections without closing the picker
  • 8196 - Updated styling of visual feedback for checkboxes
  • 7954 - Virtual Directory - Initial redirect from / to /app
  • 8197 - Changed clock icon colour for scheduled runbook triggers
  • 8191 - Fixed focus rings being clipped incorrectly in the new navigation bar
  • 7998 - Added support for kubelogin to AKS authentication. When authenticating to an AKS cluster with kubelogin in the execution environment, the kubeconfig will now be updated by calling kubelogin convert-kubeconfig -l azurecli
  • 8192 - The /reporting/deployments-counted-by-week API endpoint is being removed in future versions. Further details of this deprecation can be found in the deprecations documentation
  • 8199 - The GET api/projects/{projectId}/runbooks/all API endpoint is being removed in future versions. Further details of this deprecation can be found in the deprecations documentation
  • 8037 - Added support for cancellations in our full-table cache (made async)
  • 8189 - Rename of Kubernetes output variables to prevent clashing with customer variables
  • 8082 - Removed the usage of --short flag from kubectl since it has been deprecated
  • 8120 - Display Kubernetes Objects Status During Deployment
  • 8171 - Calling the tasks/{id}/details REST endpoint will now return all valid log entries before invalid JSON is detected in a log file. This fix also ensures Task Log Aggregation does not aggregate task log files that contain invalid JSON entries, and leaves related task logs in their original unaggregated form
  • 8184 - Improved response time when requesting projects by slug
  • 8185 - Fixed a regression that was causing stale worker leases when tasks were cancelled

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.2586

  • 8186 - Fix incorrect icon color in the quick commit button
  • 8168 - Upgrade a Helm Chart step - Helm feeds require a trailing slash in the URL if helm repo's index.yaml uses relative URLs
  • 7911 - Deployment retention no longer cleans up packages - that is all handled by package retention
  • 8025 - Fix an issue where python script output did not behave as expected due to buffering
  • 8125 - Fixed cloning project issue caused by permission scoping
  • 8080 - Users with the required permissions to clone a project scoped to a specific project group receive a permission warning when cloning a project
  • 8153 - Reduce irrelevant build information on deployments
  • 8159 - Tag set filters on the Tenants overview page now show up dynamically as new filters are added
  • 8180 - Fix the new space switcher not ordering spaces in alphabetical order
  • 8118 - Connectivity checks running indefinitely blocking execution on a deployment target
  • 8161 - Fixed package acquisition with multiple workers and multiple package references when lease cap is enabled

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.1807

  • 8176 - Fixed the variable scope editor not opening properly when navigating on keyboard
  • 7961 - The side effects of deleting and renaming a step in the same operation now occur correctly. This includes updating channel rules and project version settings

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.1708

  • 7335 - Introduced audit log retention feature. See here for more details
  • 8171 - Calling the tasks/{id}/details REST endpoint will now return all valid log entries before invalid JSON is detected in a log file. This fix also ensures Task Log Aggregation does not aggregate task log files that contain invalid JSON entries, and leaves related task logs in their original unaggregated form
  • 8177 - Fixed a regression that prevented AWS credentials from being used during step execution
  • 8175 - Return empty string instead of failing when executing get_octopusvariable() in a python script
  • 8025 - Fix an issue where python script output did not behave as expected due to buffering
  • 7184 - NuGet packages with build metadata in the version will now use the package cache to speed up transfers
  • 8169 - Improved the speed of built-in package reindexing when there are many packages with the same package id
  • 8165 - Name search for Deployment Targets is now case insensitive
  • 8178 - Tasks that rely on mono will start logging warning messages
  • 8163 - Guest users can now access Version Controlled projects and several other pages that previously returned an error
  • 8166 - Updated styling of visual feedback for most buttons across the portal
  • 8129 - Fixing UserId filtering for audit logs

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.1204

  • 8164 - Added CSV Export to the Tenants Overview (EAP) page
  • 8167 - Restored rebuilding of fragmented indexes during upgrades which improves the performance of all indexes. Upgrades times may increase noticeably for large databases
  • 8154 - Running runbooks associated with a single environment will automatically select the single environment
  • 8160 - Improved the error messages when attempting to save an invalid offline drop target

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.829

  • 8158 - Moved the filters on the Tenants overview page into the toolbar at the top of the page
  • 8152 - Fixed an issue where the top navigation bar crashes the UI when a user has no permissions

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.3.317

  • 8147 - Auto deployments of change-controlled projects no longer fail to start
  • 8149 - Introduced page-specific endpoint to improve load time on the view single Release page
  • 8151 - Introduced page-specific endpoint to improve Deployment Preview load time on Create Deployment page
  • 8144 - Fixed an issue where release creation can be slow from waiting for Package Notes

Changes in Octopus Server 2023.2.13175

  • 8272 - Fix redeploy tenanted release issue where the option to skip tenants where release is current for a tenant isn't available after explicitly selecting tenants
  • 8267 - Fix tentacle version checking when installed version is higher than the server comes with