Chapter 4. Publishing applications with .NET 6.0

.NET 6.0 applications can be published to use a shared system-wide version of .NET or to include .NET.

The following methods exist for publishing .NET 6.0 applications:

  • Single-file application - The application is self-contained and can be deployed as a single executable with all dependent files contained in a single binary.
Note

Single-file application deployment is not available on IBM Z and LinuxONE.

  • Framework-dependent deployment (FDD) - The application uses a shared system-wide version of .NET.
Note

When publishing an application for RHEL, Red Hat recommends using FDD, because it ensures that the application is using an up-to-date version of .NET, built by Red Hat, that uses a set of native dependencies. These native libraries are part of the rh-dotnet60 Software Collection.

  • Self-contained deployment (SCD) - The application includes .NET. This method uses a runtime built by Microsoft. Running applications outside the rh-dotnet60 Software Collection may cause issues due to the unavailability of native libraries.

Prerequisites

4.1. Publishing .NET applications

The following procedure outlines how to publish a framework-dependent application.

Procedure

  1. Publish the framework-dependent application: 

    $ dotnet publish my-app -f net6.0 -c Release

    Replace my-app with the name of the application you want to publish.

  2. Optional: If the application is for RHEL only, trim out the dependencies needed for other platforms: 

    $ dotnet restore my-app -r rhel.7-x64
$ dotnet publish my-app -f net6.0 -c Release -r rhel.7-x64 --self-contained false

  3. Enable the Software Collection and pass the application to run the application on a RHEL system: 

    $ scl enable rh-dotnet60 -- dotnet <app>.dll

  4. You can add the scl enable rh-dotnet60 — dotnet <app>.dll command to a script that is published with the application.

    Add the following script to your project and update the variable: 

    #!/bin/bash

APP=<app>
SCL=rh-dotnet60
DIR="$(dirname "$(readlink -f "$0")")"

scl enable $SCL -- "$DIR/$APP" "$@"

  5. To include the script when publishing, add this ItemGroup to the csproj file: 

    <ItemGroup>
    <None Update="<scriptname>" Condition="'$(RuntimeIdentifier)' == 'rhel.7-x64' and '$(SelfContained)' == 'false'" CopyToPublishDirectory="PreserveNewest" />
</ItemGroup>