Publish to IIS. Omit installing .NET Core Windows Server Hosting bundle on the server

Question

ASP.NET Core documentation says, that one of the prerequisites is to install .NET Core Windows Server Hosting bundle on the target server.

Is it possible to somehow include this dependency into self contained package, created by dotnet-publish, and avoid on-site installation?

Answer 1

No. The bundle contains the Asp.Net Core Module - and native IIS module which is required to run Asp.NET Core application with IIS. IIS will not know how to start your application if Asp.NET Core Module is not installed and you install it by installing the Windows Server Hosting bundle. More about running ASP.NET Core apps with IIS here.