MariaDB 12.3 Changes & Improvements

An overview of changes, improvements, and what's new in MariaDB Community Server 12.3

The most recent release of MariaDB Community Server 12.3 is: 12.3.2 Stable (GA)

Download Community Server 12.3.2

_{Alternate download from mariadb.org}

MariaDB 12.3 is a long term release, maintained until June 2029. This page lists all changes and improvements added since MariaDB 11.8, the previous LTS release.

New Features

Security

• Support for passphrase protected keys (MDEV-14091)

  • ssl_passphrase system variable

• New statement SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION for performing actions as another user (MDEV-20299)

• Implement SHA2 (sha256) support for the file_key_management.so plugin (TDE) — .so is Linux only (MDEV-34712)

Compatibility Features

• Oracle TO_DATE() function (MDEV-19683)

• Support for cursors on prepared statements (MDEV-33830)

• SQL Standard SET PATH statement (MDEV-34391)

• SQL Standard IS JSON predicate (MDEV-37072)

• Allow UPDATE/DELETE to read from a CTE (MDEV-37220)

• Basic XML data type (MDEV-37261)

• New authentication plugin caching_sha2_password for MySQL compatibility (MDEV-9804)

• ( + ) for outer join syntax in Oracle mode (MDEV-13817)

• Associative arrays: DECLARE TYPE .. TABLE OF .. INDEX BY (MDEV-34319) (blog post)

• DROP USER will now by default issue a warning if the user has active sessions, or fail in Oracle mode (MDEV-35617)

• Implement Oracle TO_NUMBER function (MDEV-20022)

• Implement Oracle TRUNC function (MDEV-20023)

Performance improvements

• Segmented key cache for Aria storage engine (MDEV-24)

  • The new aria_pagecache_segments system variable defines how many segments are used, default is 1, maximum 128

• MDL scalability improvements (MDEV-19749)

• Asynchronous replication between two Galera Clusters can now use parallel replication

  • This is managed by the slave_parallel_threads system variable (MDEV-20065)

• The audit plugin now supports buffered logging

  • The size of the buffer is defined using the new system variable server_audit_file_buffer_size (MDEV-34680)

• Faster vector distance calculations via extrapolation (MDEV-36205)

Audit Plugin

• The Audit Plugin now logs HOST:PORT of incoming connections instead of just the host (MDEV-1282)

• Added tls_version field for connection audit plugins (MDEV-33834)

Configuration

• Get option group suffix from $MARIADB_GROUP_SUFFIX in addition to $MYSQL_GROUP_SUFFIX (MDEV-21375)

Data types

• Comparison ROW(stored_func(),1)=ROW(1,1) erroneously called stored_func() twice per row. It led to a performance degradation, as well as to a double execution of the possible stored function side effects. (MDEV-36322)

MariaDB Cluster (Galera)

• In MariaDB Cluster (Galera), needless foreign key checks during Incremental State Transfers are now avoided (MDEV-34822)

GIS

New GIS functions. These functions improve compatibility with MySQL 8.

• ST_Validate (MDEV-34137)

• MBRCoveredBy (MDEV-34138)

• ST_Simplify (MDEV-34141)

• ST_GeoHash (MDEV-34158)

• ST_LatFromGeoHash (MDEV-34159)

• ST_LongFromGeoHash (MDEV-34160)

• ST_PointFromGeoHash (MDEV-34277)

• ST_IsValid (MDEV-34276)

• ST_Collect (MDEV-34278)

mariadb Client

• Can set an alternative directory path for searching scripts invoked via the source command, with the --script-dir mariadb client option (MDEV-23818)

Optimizer

• Rowid Filtering optimization can now be applied for reverse-ordered scans (MDEV-36094)

• Index Condition Pushdown optimization can now applied for reverse-ordered scans (MDEV-34413)

• Loose Index Scan ("Use index for group-by") optimization can now use indexes with DESC key parts (MDEV-32732)

• find_order_in_list mismatch when order item needs fixing() (MDEV-36607)

• If the join_condition is specified via USING (column_list), the query plan depends on the sequence of tables in the query (MDEV-36592)

• Optimizations for GROUP/ORDER BY can make use of indexes on virtual columns (MDEV-36132)

• Include definitions of tables and views in the optimizer trace (MDEV-36483)

  • optimizer_record_context system variable.

• Join optimizer is now able to infer that derived table with GROUP BY clause has distinct GROUP BY columns (MDEV-36321)

Optimizer hints

• Add support for optimizer hints (MDEV-35504)

  • QB_NAME

  • NO_RANGE_OPTIMIZATION

  • NO_ICP

  • MRR, NO_MRR

  • BKA, NO_BKA

  • BNL, NO_BNL

• Add support for subquery optimizer hints (MDEV-34888)

  • SEMIJOIN

  • SUBQUERY

• Add support for join order hints (MDEV-34870)

  • JOIN_FIXED_ORDER similar to existing STRAIGHT_JOIN hint

  • JOIN_ORDER to apply the specified table order

  • JOIN_PREFIX to hint what tables should be first in the join

  • JOIN_SUFFIX to hint what tables should be last in the join

• Add support for the MAX_EXECUTION_TIME hint (MDEV-34860)

• Optimizer hints: [NO_]JOIN_INDEX, [NO_]GROUP_INDEX, [NO_]ORDER_INDEX, [NO_]INDEX (MDEV-35856)

• Optimizer hints: [NO_]SPLIT_MATERIALIZED (MDEV-36092)

• Optimizer hints: [NO_]DERIVED_CONDITION_PUSHDOWN, [NO_]MERGE (MDEV-36106)

• Optimizer hint: [NO_]ROWID_FILTER (MDEV-36089),

• Optimizer hint: [NO_]INDEX_MERGE (MDEV-36125)

• Optimizer hints: Implicit query block names (MDEV-37511)

Replication

• Server displays if it was started with the skip-slave-start option (MDEV-27669)

• show_slave_auth_info has been added as a system variable (previously it was just an option). It determines whether to show the user and password in SHOW REPLICA HOSTS (SHOW SLAVE HOSTS) on the primary.

• replicate_same_server_id system variable added (previously it was just an option), which permits not skipping events having our server id.

• Ensure that creation and usage of temporary tables in replication is predictable (MDEV-36099)

  • create_tmp_table_binlog_formats system variable.

• Configurable defaults for MASTER_SSL_* settings for CHANGE MASTER (MDEV-28302)

• Fragment ROW replication events larger than max_packet_size (MDEV-32570)

• Improving performance of binary logging by removing the need of syncing it (MDEV-34705)

Stored Routines

• Add support for the pre-defined weak SYS_REFCURSOR (MDEV-20034)

  • max_open_cursors system variable limits the number of cursors opened at the same time

Server

• Add the FM format to TO_CHAR, which suppresses following padding (MDEV-36216)

• mariadb-check and CHECK TABLE now support SEQUENCE tables (MDEV-22491)

Trigger

• Add support for TRIGGERS that fire on multiple events (MDEV-10164)

Miscellaneous

• Hashicorp Plugin: Implement cache flush for forced key rotation (MDEV-30847)

• New hash algorithms for PARTITION BY KEY (MDEV-9826)

• Optimise reorderable LEFT JOINs (MDEV-36055)

• Retry applying of write sets on Galera nodes (MDEV-36077)

  • Controlled through the wsrep_applier_retry_count system variable

• mariadb-dump now supports wildcards with the -L or --wildcards option (MDEV-21376)

• Foreign key constraint names no longer need to be unique per database, only per table (MDEV-28933) (blog post)

• Remove depth limit of 32 from JSON functions (MDEV-32854)

• Add INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TRIGGERED_UPDATE_COLUMNS (MDEV-36996)

• Implement INFORMATION_SCHEMA.PARAMETERS.PARAMETER_DEFAULT column (MDEV-37054)

Notable Items

MariaDB Cluster (Galera)

• The Galera package dependency has been removed from server packages (MDEV-38744)

Variables

For a list of all new variables added since MariaDB 11.8, see:

• System Variables Added in MariaDB 12.0

• System Variables Added in MariaDB 12.1

• System Variables Added in MariaDB 12.2

• System Variables Added in MariaDB 12.3

Incompatible Changes

Since MariaDB 12.3 is the first long-term release after MariaDB 11.8, the following backward-incompatible changes may affect an upgrade. For the full upgrade procedure, see Upgrading from MariaDB 11.8 to MariaDB 12.3.

New Reserved Words

The following keywords are now reserved words. They can no longer be used as identifiers without being quoted:

• CONVERSION

• ST_COLLECT

• TO_DATE

Removed System Variables

The following deprecated system variables have been removed:

• big_tables, deprecated in MariaDB 10.5.0, removed in MariaDB 12.0

• large_page_size, deprecated in MariaDB 10.5.3, removed in MariaDB 12.0

• storage_engine, deprecated in MariaDB 5.5, removed in MariaDB 12.0

Replication

• When upgrading a replica from a pre-12.3 release to MariaDB 12.3, the CHANGE MASTER TO ... master_use_gtid setting is not currently carried over and is reset to DEFAULT (MDEV-39788). After upgrading, re-apply master_use_gtid if you rely on it. Downgrading is not affected. See Upgrading from MariaDB 11.8 to MariaDB 12.3 for details.

Security Vulnerabilities Fixed in MariaDB 12.3

For a complete list of security vulnerabilities (CVEs) fixed across all versions of MariaDB Community Server, see the Security Vulnerabilities Fixed in MariaDB Community Server page.

CVE ID (with cve.org link)	CVSS base score (v3.1)	Community Server 12.3 Release
CVE-2026-44173	5.0	MariaDB 12.3.2
CVE-2026-44172	5.0	MariaDB 12.3.2
CVE-2026-44171	6.3	MariaDB 12.3.2
CVE-2026-44170	5.0	MariaDB 12.3.2
CVE-2026-44169	4.3	MariaDB 12.3.2
CVE-2026-44168	8.0	MariaDB 12.3.2

List of All MariaDB 12.3 Releases

Date	Release	Status	Release Notes	Changelog
28 May 2026	12.3.2	Stable (GA)	Release Notes	Changelog
12 Feb 2026	12.3.1	RC	Release Notes	Changelog
22 Dec 2025	MariaDB 12.3 Preview	Preview

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