Bitbucket Data Center 8.16 release notes
28 November 2023
Introducing Bitbucket Data Center 8.16. With this release, you’re getting the dark theme option in your user profile and support for HashiCorp Vault.
Highlights include:
- Dark theme is here for everyone!
- The Reviewer suggester app bundled with Bitbucket Data Center 8.16
- Bitbucket 8.16.3 security enhancement
This Bitbucket release supports only Data Center licenses. If you’re using a Server license, learn about your options.
Dark theme is here for everyone!
Dark theme has landed in Bitbucket Data Center! Give it a try right now and enjoy the new experience for reduced eye strain, enhanced readability of content and code, and visual harmony across work environments.
Want another sneak peek at dark theme before you set it up? Here’s how your code diff will look:
Encrypt your secrets with HashiCorp Vault
We're ramping up our encryption options again in Bitbucket 8.16, giving you more autonomy for securely storing your secrets. In Bitbucket 8.15, we offered AWS Secrets Manager as a new encryption option for storing passwords and credentials. When you upgrade to Bitbucket 8.16, you can now store your secrets in HashiCorp Vault. When using V2 of the HashiCorp KV Secret Engine, choose from two encryption options — HashiCorp tokens and Kubernetes Service Account Tokens.
Learn more about HashiCorp Vault
The Reviewer suggester app bundled with Bitbucket Data Center 8.16
Starting from release 8.16, the Reviewer suggester app has become part of Bitbucket Data Center. Now, when creating a pull request, you’ll have appropriate reviewers suggested by default, based on their recent activity. Save your time for doing real work – Bitbucket will do the people search for you!
Bitbucket 8.16.3 security enhancement: App upload through UPM and REST API disabled by default
In Bitbucket Data Center 8.18.0, two ways of app installation through UPM (the Universal Plugin Manager) became disabled by default:
- with the Upload app button on the Manage apps page
- with the REST API
We've also backported this change to Bitbucket 8.16.3. So in Bitbucket 8.16.3 and all the next bugfix releases of Bitbucket 8.16.x, you can install new apps only by selecting the Install button on the Find new apps page. This limitation prevents unwanted uploads of potentially malicious files to your Bitbucket instance.
If you need to enable app installation with the Upload app button on the Manage apps page or with the REST API, set the following property in the bitbucket.properties file:
upm.plugin.upload.enabled=trueIf app installation from files and through the REST API is an integral part of your workflow, we strongly recommend setting the relevant property to enable it prior to the upgrade.
If you decide to enable the feature after the upgrade, make sure to restart your instance for the changes to take effect.
If you run a Bitbucket cluster, a rolling restart is enough to pick up the configuration properties you set to enable the features.
Before you upgrade to 8.16
Bitbucket Data Center now includes Java 17
Bitbucket 8.16 and later will run on Java 17 if you use the installer. Learn how to run the Bitbucket installer
H2 database migration requirement
The H2 database driver has been upgraded to the currently latest version 2.2.220. The upgrade has boosted data security.
For upgrades to Bitbucket 8.8 and later or Mesh 1.5 and later, manual data migration is required if any of the following applies:
you’re using a mirror
you’re using Bitbucket Server with a H2 database
you’ve set up Bitbucket Mesh
Updates to supported platforms
In Bitbucket 8.16, we’re introducing the following updates to supported platforms:
Added support for SQL Server 2022
Learn more from the end of support announcements
Get ready to upgrade
Before upgrading from an earlier version, check out our upgrade guide and upgrade matrix. Remember to renew your active software maintenance license too.
As part of our new pull request experience from version 7.0 and higher, we have created a collection of new features for you to check out on one page, Enhancements to your code review workflow.
Change log
Resolved issues in Bitbucket Data Center 8.16.4
Released 8 March 2024
Resolved issues in Bitbucket Data Center 8.16.3
Released 7 February 2024
Resolved issues in Bitbucket Data Center 8.16.2
Released 9 January 2024
Resolved issues in Bitbucket Data Center 8.16.1
Released 11 December 2023
Resolved issues in Bitbucket Data Center 8.16.0
Released 28 November 2023