Access to the path "/etc/mono/registry" is denied

Question

When I run my ASP.NET MVC 4 website on my Fedora 20 workstation with xsp4 (from MonoDevelop or directly) I'm getting the following exception:

System.Web.HttpRuntime.FinishWithException (wr={Mono.WebServer.XSPWorkerRequest}, e={System.Web.HttpException:  ---> System.Web.HttpException: The pre-application start initialization method Start on type System.Web.WebPages.PreApplicationStartCode threw an exception with the following error message: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.Reflection.TargetInvocationException: Exception has been thrown by the target of an invocation. ---> System.TypeInitializationException: An exception was thrown by the type initializer for <Module> ---> System.Security.SecurityException: No access to the given key ---> System.UnauthorizedAccessException: Access to the path "/etc/mono/registry" is denied.
at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectoriesInternal (System.String path) [0x00064] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Directory.cs:113 
at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory (System.String path) [0x000a4] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Directory.cs:80 
at System.IO.DirectoryInfo.Create () [0x00000] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/DirectoryInfo.cs:141 
at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) System.IO.DirectoryInfo:Create ()
at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectoriesInternal (System.String path) [0x00039] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Directory.cs:98 
at System.IO.Directory.CreateDirectory (System.String path) [0x000a4] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.IO/Directory.cs:80 
at Microsoft.Win32.KeyHandler..ctor (Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rkey, System.String basedir, Boolean is_volatile) [0x0004a] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/UnixRegistryApi.cs:136 
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at Microsoft.Win32.KeyHandler..ctor (Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rkey, System.String basedir, Boolean is_volatile) [0x00057] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/UnixRegistryApi.cs:138 
at Microsoft.Win32.KeyHandler..ctor (Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rkey, System.String basedir) [0x00000] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/UnixRegistryApi.cs:116 
at Microsoft.Win32.KeyHandler.Lookup (Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rkey, Boolean createNonExisting) [0x000cc] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/UnixRegistryApi.cs:412 
at Microsoft.Win32.UnixRegistryApi.OpenSubKey (Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey rkey, System.String keyname, Boolean writable) [0x00000] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/UnixRegistryApi.cs:836 
at Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.OpenSubKey (System.String name, Boolean writable) [0x0001e] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/RegistryKey.cs:278 
at Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey.OpenSubKey (System.String name) [0x00000] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/Microsoft.Win32/RegistryKey.cs:262 
at (wrapper remoting-invoke-with-check) Microsoft.Win32.RegistryKey:OpenSubKey (string)
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.RegistryKeyWrapper.OpenSubKey (System.String name) [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.KillBitHelper.GetKillBittedVersions () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.KillBitHelper.IsThisAssemblyKillBitted () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.KillBitHelper.ThrowIfKillBitIsSet () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.ModuleInitializer+CriticalInitializer.CheckKillBit () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.ModuleInitializer+CriticalInitializer.Initialize () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at Microsoft.Web.Infrastructure.ModuleInitializer.Initialize () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
at <Module>..cctor () [0x00000] in <filename unknown>:0 
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Web.WebPages.PreApplicationStartCode.Start () [0x0002b] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/external/aspnetwebstack/src/System.Web.WebPages/PreApplicationStartCode.cs:40 
at (wrapper managed-to-native) System.Reflection.MonoMethod:InternalInvoke (System.Reflection.MonoMethod,object,object[],System.Exception&)
at System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00054] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:230 
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Reflection.MonoMethod.Invoke (System.Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr, System.Reflection.Binder binder, System.Object[] parameters, System.Globalization.CultureInfo culture) [0x00069] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MonoMethod.cs:238 
at System.Reflection.MethodBase.Invoke (System.Object obj, System.Object[] parameters) [0x00000] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/corlib/System.Reflection/MethodBase.cs:114 
at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CallPreStartMethods () [0x0004f] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/System.Web/System.Web.Compilation/BuildManager.cs:561 
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---
at System.Web.Compilation.BuildManager.CallPreStartMethods () [0x0007e] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/System.Web/System.Web.Compilation/BuildManager.cs:564 
at System.Web.HttpApplicationFactory.InitType (System.Web.HttpContext context) [0x00059] in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/System.Web/System.Web/HttpApplicationFactory.cs:408 
--- End of inner exception stack trace ---}) in /builddir/build/BUILD/mono-3.4.0/mcs/class/System.Web/System.Web/HttpRuntime.cs:674

I've checked it and there is no registry file or folder in /etc/mono/. I also can't find it in any subfolder, how can I resolve this question?

I'm running Fedora 20 with the latest 3.15.6 kernel

$ mono --version
Mono JIT compiler version 3.4.0 (tarball Fri Jun 27 17:26:36 UTC 2014)
Copyright (C) 2002-2014 Novell, Inc, Xamarin Inc and Contributors. www.mono-project.com
    TLS:           __thread
    SIGSEGV:       altstack
    Notifications: epoll
    Architecture:  amd64
    Disabled:      none
    Misc:          softdebug 
    LLVM:          supported, not enabled.
    GC:            sgen

$ xsp4 --version
xsp4.exe 3.0.0.0
Copyright (C) 2002-2011 Novell, Inc.
Minimalistic web server for testing System.Web

I have another setup in Ubuntu 14.04 LTS and that one works, so it might be something with the mono version, or maybe I'm missing some library?

Answer 1

Turns out simply creating the folder using mkdir

sudo mkdir /etc/mono/registry

and setting the right permissions using chmod

sudo chmod uog+rw /etc/mono/registry

does the trick.

However I still don't understand where such a folder is hidden in Ubuntu and why it doesn't need to be created there, as well as why it isn't created automatically during the installation.

Answer 2

You can set MONO_REGISTRY_PATH to point to a directory that you control:

bash mkdir my-registry MONO_REGISTRY_PATH=`pwd`/my-registry xsp4