CODEWITHSUNDEEP
asp.net-corekatana.net-corekestrel-http-server
Jeroen-bart Engelen
Jeroen-bart Engelen

Reputation: 1167

Does ASP.NET Core on .NET Core follow the console app model, or the IIS hosting model?

Currently I maintain an application that runs as a Windows service, reads messages from a message queue server, processes them and puts the result back into the message queue server. But it also contains a health monitoring component that is accessible through a web API. It is implemented as a console app that uses Katana to self-host the health monitoring sub-system.

I'm now trying to figure out if we can move this to .NET Core and ASP.NET Core once they RTM. I know the Windows Service part cannot be ported, but I could also run the console app as a detached Docker container to basically achieve the same thing, in terms of main functionality. But how will the health monitoring work? From what I can see the Katana project has been updated to ASP.NET 5 (which I guess is ASP.NET Core 1 before the big rename), but it does not run on the .NET Core CLR. Katana will require the full CLR. So that means Katana is out.

Does this mean that the way we build our app is impossible with .NET Core? Or does hosting the app through Kestrel not rule out the possibility of running code before the first request? With IIS the app does not live until the first request (unless you use the auto-start, but it's more of a speed-optimisation than have the app behave like an "allways-running-app") and generally the app is request-based and not continually running. Background threads in a IIS hosted app are a really bad idea. Is this the same with Kestrel? Or will DNX start your app and keep it running until it's shutdown, much like a console app, so we can run all the background threads we want?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 1290

Answers (1)

Thomas
Thomas

Reputation: 5240

It follows the console app model. Katana is actually more the spiritual predecessor to kestrel. It is invoked for normal ASP.NET Core projects from the Main method with a normal method call. There are countless tutorials how to setup a server in RC1 (see Startup.cs Main method) and some for the upcoming RC2 (there is a builder for it). That would allow you to do both, your app code and your web api based monitoring, in a console app. Kestrel and DNX are not at all an application server like IIS. Kestrel is a plain HTTP server library and nothing more. You start it up and it listens from that moment on.

Nevertheless, you have to adjust your WebApi 2 and Katana based application to the new ASP.NET Core interfaces and middleware concept. But that should be easy compared to your message queuing adaption.

Upvotes: 1

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