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Build a Simple .NET Core App on Docker

This is a short step-by-step tutorial to distribute a .NET Core application in a docker image.
I’ll cover how you can use Docker to run your application in an isolated, minimal environment with fewer moving parts.

To build and distribute a .NET Core application in Docker, first we need an application to Dockerize and some prerequisites.

In this tutorial, we'll perform the steps from a Terminal, like Windows command prompt.

First, create a working folder for our exercise

mkdir NetCoreDocker


Check .NET Core version installed on your computer

dotnet --info


Check Docker version installed on your computer

docker version


Place a file named global.json in exercise directory with the following content


{ 
    "sdk": { 
        "version": "3.0.100" 
    } 
}
                

This will force the compiler to use 3.0 version of the SDK

Then create .NET Core console application

dotnet new console -o app -n myapp


The folder structure will be similar to the following example


NetCoreDocker 
│   global.json 
│ 
└───app 
    │   myapp.csproj 
    │   Program.cs 
    │ 
    └───obj 
        myapp.csproj.nuget.cache 
        myapp.csproj.nuget.g.props 
        myapp.csproj.nuget.g.targets 
        project.assets.json
                

.NET Core creates a console application that is executed, then terminated.
We modify the application that runs continuously instead.

Modify Program.cs as below


using System; 
 
namespace myapp 
{ 
    class Program 
    { 
        static void Main(string[] args) 
        { 
            var counter = 0; 
            var max = args.Length != 0 ? Convert.ToInt32(args[0]) : -1; 
            while(max == -1 || counter < max) 
            { 
                counter++; 
                Console.WriteLine($"Counter: {counter}"); 
                System.Threading.Tasks.Task.Delay(1000).Wait(); 
            } 
        } 
    } 
}
                

Move in app sub-folder and test application

dotnet run


Finally, publish the application

dotnet publish -c Release


Application will be published in this folder

NetCoreDocker\app\bin\Release\netcoreapp3.0\publish


Place a file named Dockerfile in the working folder with the following content


FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/runtime:3.0
COPY app\bin\Release\netcoreapp3.0\publish app/ 
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "app/myapp.dll"]
                

Now we can build Docker image of our application

docker build -t myimage -f Dockerfile .


Finally, verify the right build of the image

docker images


Final notice

If you want to try starting from the source code of your application (contained in the /src folder, not in the /app folder like now) and compile directly on a Docker image, change the Dockerfile contents with this multistage builds


FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:3.0 AS build
WORKDIR /src
COPY ["myapp.csproj", "./"]
RUN dotnet restore "./myapp.csproj"
COPY . .
RUN dotnet build "myapp.csproj" -c Release -o /app
                        
FROM build AS publish
RUN dotnet publish "myapp.csproj" -c Release -o /app
                        
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/runtime:3.0 AS base
WORKDIR /app
EXPOSE 5001
                        
FROM base AS final
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=publish /app .
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "myapp.dll"]
                

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