CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxubuntuasp.net-core.net-core
Dave Smash
Dave Smash

Reputation: 3001

.Net Core on Linux runs fine with 'dotnet myapp.dll' but fails with systemctl

I am trying to host an ASP.Net Core MVC application on Ubuntu Server 16.04 LTS by following the directions in this tutorial.

From the Linux machine, I use git pull to pull in my project. I build it successfully with dotnet build, which triggers a package restore. I publish it successfully with dotnet publish -c Release -r linux-x64. I change directories to bin/Release/netcoreapp2.1 and run sudo cp ./*.* /var/aspnetcore/myapp/ to copy the files into the directory where I am hosting the project. I navigate to that directory and type dotnet myapp.dll - the app begins listening on ports 5000 and 5001, and from a different computer, I can type my domain name into a browser and see the web site, which means the Nginx reverse proxy and Kestrel must be working fine.

Now I want to run the application as a service so that it starts with the computer, restarts on crash, logs errors, etc, but when I type sudo systemctl start kestrel-myapp.service it crashes immediately and attempts to restart every 10 seconds but fails. The log shows the error: An assembly in the application dependencies manifest (myapp.deps.json) was not found: package: 'Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational.Design', version '1.1.5' path: 'lib/netstandard1.3/Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational.Design.dll' Main process exited, code=exited, status=140/n/a

So, the version 1.1.5 looks suspiciously low, but I updated all of my NuGet packages and it still wants to use it. Plus, I don't understand why it doesn't crash with dotnet myapp.dll if there is a problem with the dependencies. Does anybody know how to fix the issue?

Here is my service file:

[Unit]
Description=myapp ASP.Net Core MVC Application

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/var/aspnetcore/myapp
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /var/aspnetcore/myapp/myapp.dll
Restart=always
# Restart service after 10 seconds if the dotnet service crashes:
RestartSec=10
SyslogIdentifier=myapp
User=www-data
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production
Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Bonus question: where do I copy my wwwroot folder with my static files to? The application runs but can't find any of my javascript or css files, and I'm not sure where they belong.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3216

Answers (2)

Irshu
Irshu

Reputation: 8446

Make sure the WorkingDirectory is set to the directory where the runtime dll file is located.

Upvotes: 0

omajid
omajid

Reputation: 15233

When you dotnet publish -c Release -r linux-x64 it creates several directories. You want to use the bin/Release/netcoreapp2.1/linux-x64/publish directory. Other directories contain builds too, but those builds assume they will be run on development systems. Only the publish directory contains bits that should be deployed. The other directories contain bits that assume they are running in a development environment.

It works when you run dotnet myapp.dll because you are still running as your regular user and it sees your local development assets, including the nuget cache.

When you run via systemctl, it runs as root which does not have any local nuget cache and can't use the development (non-published) version of your code.

Upvotes: 3

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