diff --git a/manifests/deps.pp b/manifests/deps.pp
index 8defa5d..19bc0bd 100644
--- a/manifests/deps.pp
+++ b/manifests/deps.pp
@@ -24,6 +24,10 @@ class ec2api::deps {
   ~> Service<| tag == 'ec2api-service' |>
   ~> anchor { 'ec2api::service::end': }
 
+  # all db settings should be applied and all packages should be installed
+  # before dbsync starts
+  Oslo::Db<||> -> Anchor['ec2api::dbsync::begin']
+
   # policy config should occur in the config block also.
   Anchor['ec2api::config::begin']
   -> Openstacklib::Policy::Base<||>
diff --git a/test-requirements.txt b/test-requirements.txt
index baa2346..1ea50a8 100644
--- a/test-requirements.txt
+++ b/test-requirements.txt
@@ -1,5 +1,7 @@
-# this is required for the docs build jobs
-sphinx!=1.2.0,!=1.3b1,<1.3,>=1.1.2
-oslosphinx>=2.5.0 # Apache-2.0
+# This is required for the docs build jobs
+sphinx>=1.5.1  # BSD
+oslosphinx>=4.7.0  # Apache-2.0
+
+# This is required for the releasenotes build jobs
 # FIXME: reno is manually pinned to !=2.0.0 because of bug #1651995
-reno>=0.1.1,!=2.0.0 # Apache-2.0
+reno>=1.8.0,!=2.0.0  # Apache-2.0