What’s New in Spring Boot 2.6.0? Key Features and Migration Tips

Important Features

1. Servlet applications support SameSite attribute in cookies

The attribute can be configured via server.session.cookie.same-site with three possible values: Strict, Lax, None (requires Secure).

2. Support configuring health groups for main and management ports

Useful in Kubernetes and other cloud environments where a separate management port is common; separate ports can cause unreliable health checks.

Previously all Actuator endpoints were placed on a single port with health groups on the main port's additional path.

3. Enhanced /info endpoint with Java Runtime information

Example JSON:

{
  "java": {
    "vendor": "BellSoft",
    "version": "17",
    "runtime": {
      "name": "OpenJDK Runtime Environment",
      "version": "17+35-LTS"
    },
    "jvm": {
      "name": "OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM",
      "vendor": "BellSoft",
      "version": "17+35-LTS"
    }
  }
}

Enable or disable with management.info.java.enabled=true.

4. Support using WebTestClient to test Spring MVC

Developers can now inject WebTestClient in @AutoConfigureMockMvc classes for easier testing.

5. Add auto‑configuration for spring‑rabbit‑stream

When spring.rabbitmq.listener.type=stream, a StreamListenerContainer is auto‑configured. Stream properties can be set via spring.rabbitmq.stream.* and native listener enabled with spring.rabbitmq.listener.stream.native-listener.

6. Custom sanitizing for /env and /configprops endpoints

Allows custom sanitizing functions based on the originating PropertySource, useful for encrypted values from Spring Cloud Vault.

Other Changes

1. Reactive Session personalization

Dynamic configuration of reactive session timeout:

server.reactive.session.timeout=30

2. Redis connection pool auto‑configuration

When commons-pool2.jar is present, Redis connection pools are auto‑configured. Disable with:

spring.redis.jedis.pool.enabled=false

spring.redis.lettuce.pool.enabled=false

3. Build information personalization

spring‑boot‑maven‑plugin can generate build-info.properties.

4. New Metrics

Application startup times:

application.started.time: time to start the application
application.ready.time: time to become ready for service

Disk space metrics:

disk.free: free disk space
disk.total: total disk space

5. Docker image build enhancements

Custom tags for images

Network configuration for Cloud Native Buildpacks

Configurable cache layer names via buildCache and launchCache

6. Removal of deprecated properties from 2.4

Many old properties have been removed; see the mappings below.

Old → New mappings:

spring.web.locale → spring.mvc.locale

spring.web.locale-resolver → spring.mvc.locale-resolver

spring.web.resources.* → spring.resources.*

management.server.base-path → management.server.servlet.context-path

7. Default prohibition of bean circular references

Circular dependencies are now disallowed by default. To re‑enable, set spring.main.allow-circular-references=true.

8. Spring MVC default path‑matching strategy

Changed from AntPathMatcher to PathPatternParser . Actuator endpoints also use PathPattern. To revert, set spring.mvc.pathmatch.matching-strategy=ant-path-matcher.

Reference

Spring Boot 2.6 is now available

Spring Boot 2.6.0 Configuration Changelog

Spring Boot 2.6.0 released (OSChina)