Running a self-contained ASP.NET Core application on Ubuntu

Question

I've published an ASP.NET Core application as a self-contained application targeting Ubuntu. The publish seems to work fine. I've copied the files to a pretty vanilla Ubuntu machine. Now, how do I run my application?

My understanding is that because it is a self-contained .NET Core application I do not need to download and install .NET Core anything. My application should contain everything it needs.

All tutorials seem to say I should call dotnet run. However, the "dotnet" command line doesn't exist (is it supposed to be published into the self-contained folder??) So if I call it, I get "command not found". Of course I could download .NET Core, but doesn't that go against the whole self-contained concept?

Here is a sample of the files I'm copying over:

Answer 1

Answer

Now, how do I run my application? My understanding is that because it is a self-contained .NET Core application I do not need to download and install .NET Core anything. My application should contain everything it needs.

You are correct. Run the executable.

When you create a self-contained app, the publish output "contains the complete set of files (both your app files and all .NET Core files) needed to launch your app." That includes the executable.

Example Self-Contained Deployment

Here is the output of dotnet publish -c release -r ubuntu.14.04-x64 for a simple self-contained application. Copy the publish directory to Ubuntu and run the executable.

C:\MyApp\bin\release\netcoreapp1.0\ubuntu.14.04-x64\publish\

...

libsos.so
libsosplugin.so
libuv.so
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.CSharp.dll
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.dll
Microsoft.CodeAnalysis.VisualBasic.dll
Microsoft.CSharp.dll
Microsoft.VisualBasic.dll
Microsoft.Win32.Primitives.dll
Microsoft.Win32.Registry.dll
mscorlib.dll
mscorlib.ni.dll
MyApp                        <------- On Ubuntu, run this executable
MyApp.deps.json                       and you will see Hello World!
MyApp.dll
MyApp.pdb
MyApp.runtimeconfig.json
sosdocsunix.txt
System.AppContext.dll
System.Buffers.dll
System.Collections.Concurrent.dll
System.Collections.dll

...

C:\MyApp\project.json

{
  "buildOptions": {
    "debugType": "portable",
    "emitEntryPoint": true
  },
  "dependencies": {},
  "frameworks": {
    "netcoreapp1.0": {
      "dependencies": {
        "Microsoft.NETCore.App": "1.0.1"
      }
    }
  },
  "runtimes": {
    "ubuntu.14.04-x64" : {},
    "win10-x64" : {}
  }
}

C:\MyApp\Program.cs

public class Program
{
    public static void Main(string[] args)
    {
        System.Console.WriteLine("Hello World!");
    }
}

See Also

This document differentiates between framework-dependent and self-contained deployments.

Answer 2

Follow the below steps to run your application:

1. Publish your application as a self contained application:

   dotnet publish -c release -r ubuntu.16.04-x64 --self-contained
   

2. Copy the publish folder to the Ubuntu machine

3. Open the Ubuntu machine terminal (CLI) and go to the project directory

4. Provide execute permissions:

   chmod 777 ./appname
   

5. Execute the application

   ./appname
   

Author: Harit Kumar

Original answer here: How to run a .NET Core console application on Linux

Answer 3

It's worth noting that with the .NET Standard 2+, there are two required steps:

• Edit the .csproj file and add a line with a list of target runtimes:

<PropertyGroup>

<OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
<TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.0</TargetFramework>

<!-- Add this with the required runtimes -->
<RuntimeIdentifiers>win10-x64;osx.10.11-x64;ubuntu.16.10-x64</RuntimeIdentifiers>

</PropertyGroup>

• Restore and build the app: dotnet restore && dotnet build -c release -r RUNTIME

Where RUNTIME is one of the runtimes listed in the .csproj file.

Importantly note that you cannot do this without the .csproj file edit and calling dotnet restore, or the runtime will not be downloaded from NuGet, and the -r ... flag will not work.