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Deploy .NET Core apps with Visual Studio

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You can deploy a .NET Core application either as a framework-dependent deployment, which includes your application binaries but depends on the presence of .NET Core on the target system, or as a self-contained deployment, which includes both your application and .NET Core binaries. For an overview of .NET Core application deployment, see .NET Core Application Deployment.

The following sections show how to use Microsoft Visual Studio to create the following kinds of deployments:

  • Framework-dependent deployment
  • Framework-dependent deployment with third-party dependencies
  • Self-contained deployment
  • Self-contained deployment with third-party dependencies

For information on using Visual Studio to develop .NET Core applications, see .NET Core dependencies and requirements.

Framework-dependent deployment

Deploying a framework-dependent deployment with no third-party dependencies simply involves building, testing, and publishing the app. A simple example written in C# illustrates the process.

  1. Create the project.

    Select File > New > Project. In the New Project dialog, expand your language's (C# or Visual Basic) project categories in the Installed project types pane, choose .NET Core, and then select the Console App (.NET Core) template in the center pane. Enter a project name, such as "FDD", in the Name text box. Select the OK button.

  2. Add the application's source code.

    Open the Program.cs or Program.vb file in the editor and replace the autogenerated code with the following code. It prompts the user to enter text and displays the individual words entered by the user. It uses the regular expression \w+ to separate the words in the input text.

    using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace Applications.ConsoleApps
{
    public class ConsoleParser
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Enter any text, followed by <Enter>:\n");
            String? s = Console.ReadLine();
            ShowWords(s ?? "You didn't enter anything.");
            Console.Write("\nPress any key to continue... ");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }

        private static void ShowWords(String s)
        {
            String pattern = @"\w+";
            var matches = Regex.Matches(s, pattern);
            if (matches.Count == 0)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("\nNo words were identified in your input.");
            }
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"\nThere are {matches.Count} words in your string:");
                for (int ctr = 0; ctr < matches.Count; ctr++)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine($"   #{ctr,2}: '{matches[ctr].Value}' at position {matches[ctr].Index}");
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

    Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Namespace Applications.ConsoleApps
    Public Module ConsoleParser
        Public Sub Main()
            Console.WriteLine("Enter any text, followed by <Enter>:")
            Console.WriteLine()
            Dim s = Console.ReadLine()
            ShowWords(s)
            Console.Write($"{vbCrLf}Press any key to continue... ")
            Console.ReadKey()
        End Sub

        Private Sub ShowWords(s As String)
            Dim pattern = "\w+"
            Dim matches = Regex.Matches(s, pattern)
            Console.WriteLine()   
            If matches.Count = 0 Then
                Console.WriteLine("No words were identified in your input.")
            Else
                Console.WriteLine($"There are {matches.Count} words in your string:")
                For ctr = 0 To matches.Count - 1
                    Console.WriteLine($"   #{ctr,2}: '{matches(ctr).Value}' at position {matches(ctr).Index}")
                Next
            End If
            Console.WriteLine()
        End Sub
    End Module
End Namespace

  3. Create a Debug build of your app.

    Select Build > Build Solution. You can also compile and run the Debug build of your application by selecting Debug > Start Debugging.

  4. Deploy your app.

    After you've debugged and tested the program, create the files to be deployed with your app. To publish from Visual Studio, do the following:

    1. Change the solution configuration from Debug to Release on the toolbar to build a Release (rather than a Debug) version of your app.

    2. Right-click on the project (not the solution) in Solution Explorer and select Publish.

    3. In the Publish tab, select Publish. Visual Studio writes the files that comprise your application to the local file system.

    4. The Publish tab now shows a single profile, FolderProfile. The profile's configuration settings are shown in the Summary section of the tab.

    The resulting files are placed in a directory named Publish on Windows and publish on Unix systems that is in a subdirectory of your project's .\bin\release\netcoreapp2.1 subdirectory.

Along with your application's files, the publishing process emits a program database (.pdb) file that contains debugging information about your app. The file is useful primarily for debugging exceptions. You can choose not to package it with your application's files. You should, however, save it in the event that you want to debug the Release build of your app.

Deploy the complete set of application files in any way you like. For example, you can package them in a Zip file, use a simple copy command, or deploy them with any installation package of your choice. Once installed, users can then execute your application by using the dotnet command and providing the application filename, such as dotnet fdd.dll.

In addition to the application binaries, your installer should also either bundle the shared framework installer or check for it as a prerequisite as part of the application installation. Installation of the shared framework requires Administrator/root access since it is machine-wide.

Framework-dependent deployment with third-party dependencies

Deploying a framework-dependent deployment with one or more third-party dependencies requires that any dependencies be available to your project. The following additional steps are required before you can build your app:

  1. Use the NuGet Package Manager to add a reference to a NuGet package to your project; and if the package is not already available on your system, install it. To open the package manager, select Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.

  2. Confirm that your third-party dependencies (for example, Newtonsoft.Json) are installed on your system and, if they aren't, install them. The Installed tab lists NuGet packages installed on your system. If Newtonsoft.Json is not listed there, select the Browse tab and enter "Newtonsoft.Json" in the search box. Select Newtonsoft.Json and, in the right pane, select your project before selecting Install.

  3. If Newtonsoft.Json is already installed on your system, add it to your project by selecting your project in the right pane of the Manage Packages for Solution tab.

A framework-dependent deployment with third-party dependencies is only as portable as its third-party dependencies. For example, if a third-party library only supports macOS, the app isn't portable to Windows systems. This happens if the third-party dependency itself depends on native code. A good example of this is Kestrel server, which requires a native dependency on libuv. When an FDD is created for an application with this kind of third-party dependency, the published output contains a folder for each Runtime Identifier (RID) that the native dependency supports (and that exists in its NuGet package).

Self-contained deployment without third-party dependencies

Deploying a self-contained deployment with no third-party dependencies involves creating the project, modifying the csproj file, building, testing, and publishing the app. A simple example written in C# illustrates the process. You begin by creating, coding, and testing your project just as you would a framework-dependent deployment:

  1. Create the project.

    Select File > New > Project. In the New Project dialog, expand your language's (C# or Visual Basic) project categories in the Installed project types pane, choose .NET Core, and then select the Console App (.NET Core) template in the center pane. Enter a project name, such as "SCD", in the Name text box, and select the OK button.

  2. Add the application's source code.

    Open the Program.cs or Program.vb file in your editor, and replace the autogenerated code with the following code. It prompts the user to enter text and displays the individual words entered by the user. It uses the regular expression \w+ to separate the words in the input text.

    using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;

namespace Applications.ConsoleApps
{
    public class ConsoleParser
    {
        public static void Main()
        {
            Console.WriteLine("Enter any text, followed by <Enter>:\n");
            String? s = Console.ReadLine();
            ShowWords(s ?? "You didn't enter anything.");
            Console.Write("\nPress any key to continue... ");
            Console.ReadKey();
        }

        private static void ShowWords(String s)
        {
            String pattern = @"\w+";
            var matches = Regex.Matches(s, pattern);
            if (matches.Count == 0)
            {
                Console.WriteLine("\nNo words were identified in your input.");
            }
            else
            {
                Console.WriteLine($"\nThere are {matches.Count} words in your string:");
                for (int ctr = 0; ctr < matches.Count; ctr++)
                {
                    Console.WriteLine($"   #{ctr,2}: '{matches[ctr].Value}' at position {matches[ctr].Index}");
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

    Imports System.Text.RegularExpressions

Namespace Applications.ConsoleApps
    Public Module ConsoleParser
        Public Sub Main()
            Console.WriteLine("Enter any text, followed by <Enter>:")
            Console.WriteLine()
            Dim s = Console.ReadLine()
            ShowWords(s)
            Console.Write($"{vbCrLf}Press any key to continue... ")
            Console.ReadKey()
        End Sub

        Private Sub ShowWords(s As String)
            Dim pattern = "\w+"
            Dim matches = Regex.Matches(s, pattern)
            Console.WriteLine()   
            If matches.Count = 0 Then
                Console.WriteLine("No words were identified in your input.")
            Else
                Console.WriteLine($"There are {matches.Count} words in your string:")
                For ctr = 0 To matches.Count - 1
                    Console.WriteLine($"   #{ctr,2}: '{matches(ctr).Value}' at position {matches(ctr).Index}")
                Next
            End If
            Console.WriteLine()
        End Sub
    End Module
End Namespace

  3. Determine whether you want to use globalization invariant mode.

    Particularly if your app targets Linux, you can reduce the total size of your deployment by taking advantage of globalization invariant mode. Globalization invariant mode is useful for applications that are not globally aware and that can use the formatting conventions, casing conventions, and string comparison and sort order of the invariant culture.

    To enable invariant mode, right-click on your project (not the solution) in Solution Explorer, and select Edit SCD.csproj or Edit SCD.vbproj. Then add the following highlighted lines to the file:

    <Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">

  <PropertyGroup>
    <TargetFramework>net8.0</TargetFramework>
    <Nullable>enable</Nullable>
  </PropertyGroup>

  <ItemGroup>
    <RuntimeHostConfigurationOption Include="System.Globalization.Invariant" Value="true" />
  </ItemGroup> 

</Project>

  4. Create a Debug build of your application.

    Select Build > Build Solution. You can also compile and run the Debug build of your application by selecting Debug > Start Debugging. This debugging step lets you identify problems with your application when it's running on your host platform. You still will have to test it on each of your target platforms.

    If you've enabled globalization invariant mode, be particularly sure to test whether the absence of culture-sensitive data is suitable for your application.

Once you've finished debugging, you can publish your self-contained deployment:

After you've debugged and tested the program, create the files to be deployed with your app for each platform that it targets.

To publish your app from Visual Studio, do the following:

  1. Define the platforms that your app will target.

    1. Right-click on your project (not the solution) in Solution Explorer and select Edit SCD.csproj.

    2. Create a <RuntimeIdentifiers> tag in the <PropertyGroup> section of your csproj file that defines the platforms your app targets, and specify the runtime identifier (RID) of each platform that you target. You also need to add a semicolon to separate the RIDs. See Runtime identifier catalog for a list of runtime identifiers.

    For example, the following example indicates that the app runs on 64-bit Windows operating systems and the 64-bit OS X operating system.

    <PropertyGroup>
   <RuntimeIdentifiers>win-x64;osx-x64</RuntimeIdentifiers>
</PropertyGroup>

    The <RuntimeIdentifiers> element can go into any <PropertyGroup> that you have in your csproj file. A complete sample csproj file appears later in this section.

  2. Publish your app.

    After you've debugged and tested the program, create the files to be deployed with your app for each platform that it targets.

    To publish your app from Visual Studio, do the following:

    1. Change the solution configuration from Debug to Release on the toolbar to build a Release (rather than a Debug) version of your app.

    2. Right-click on the project (not the solution) in Solution Explorer and select Publish.

    3. In the Publish tab, select Publish. Visual Studio writes the files that comprise your application to the local file system.

    4. The Publish tab now shows a single profile, FolderProfile. The profile's configuration settings are shown in the Summary section of the tab. Target Runtime identifies which runtime has been published, and Target Location identifies where the files for the self-contained deployment were written.

    5. Visual Studio by default writes all published files to a single directory. For convenience, it's best to create separate profiles for each target runtime and to place published files in a platform-specific directory. This involves creating a separate publishing profile for each target platform. So now rebuild the application for each platform by doing the following:

      1. Select Create new profile in the Publish dialog.

      2. In the Pick a publish target dialog, change the Choose a folder location to bin\Release\PublishOutput\win-x64. Select OK.

      3. Select the new profile (FolderProfile1) in the list of profiles, and make sure that the Target Runtime is win-x64. If it isn't, select Settings. In the Profile Settings dialog, change the Target Runtime to win-x64 and select Save. Otherwise, select Cancel.

      4. Select Publish to publish your app for 64-bit Windows 10 platforms.

      5. Follow the previous steps again to create a profile for the osx-x64 platform. The Target Location is bin\Release\PublishOutput\osx-x64, and the Target Runtime is osx-x64. The name that Visual Studio assigns to this profile is FolderProfile2.

    Each target location contains the complete set of files (both your app files and all .NET Core files) needed to launch your app.

Along with your application's files, the publishing process emits a program database (.pdb) file that contains debugging information about your app. The file is useful primarily for debugging exceptions. You can choose not to package it with your application's files. You should, however, save it in the event that you want to debug the Release build of your app.

Deploy the published files in any way you like. For example, you can package them in a Zip file, use a simple copy command, or deploy them with any installation package of your choice.

The following is the complete csproj file for this project.

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>
    <RuntimeIdentifiers>win-x64;osx-x64</RuntimeIdentifiers>
  </PropertyGroup>
</Project>

Self-contained deployment with third-party dependencies

Deploying a self-contained deployment with one or more third-party dependencies involves adding the dependencies. The following additional steps are required before you can build your app:

  1. Use the NuGet Package Manager to add a reference to a NuGet package to your project; and if the package is not already available on your system, install it. To open the package manager, select Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution.

  2. Confirm that your third-party dependencies (for example, Newtonsoft.Json) are installed on your system and, if they aren't, install them. The Installed tab lists NuGet packages installed on your system. If Newtonsoft.Json is not listed there, select the Browse tab and enter "Newtonsoft.Json" in the search box. Select Newtonsoft.Json and, in the right pane, select your project before selecting Install.

  3. If Newtonsoft.Json is already installed on your system, add it to your project by selecting your project in the right pane of the Manage Packages for Solution tab.

The following is the complete csproj file for this project:

<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
  <PropertyGroup>
    <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
    <TargetFramework>netcoreapp2.1</TargetFramework>
    <RuntimeIdentifiers>win-x64;osx-x64</RuntimeIdentifiers>
  </PropertyGroup>
  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Newtonsoft.Json" Version="10.0.2" />
  </ItemGroup>
</Project>

When you deploy your application, any third-party dependencies used in your app are also contained with your application files. Third-party libraries aren't required on the system on which the app is running.

You can only deploy a self-contained deployment with a third-party library to platforms supported by that library. This is similar to having third-party dependencies with native dependencies in your framework-dependent deployment, where the native dependencies won't exist on the target platform unless they were previously installed there.

See also