Is it possible to compile a self-contained ASP.NET Core Web Application

Question

I am looking for a way to generate a self-contained EXE that will launch ASP.NET Core (.NET Core). The project will simply serve up some static files from /wwwroot.

I have found a few resources that show how to make a Console Application into a self-contained EXE. These resources involve modifying project.json which does not seem to exist (at least on the initial template).

I have not see any that would allow me to do this with an ASP.NET Core application, is this possible or am I missing something?

Answer 1

Yes, it is.

However, if you can't find a project.json file in the folder of your project, you did something wrong when setting it up.

After you create a new folder for your project, navigate to that folder in the console and create a new web project with this command:

dotnet new -t web

The project.json file, along with all of the web template files, should be created at this moment.

Open the project.json file and remove (or comment out) the line

"type": "platform"

You should also add the following values after the "dependencies" block

"runtimes": { 
    "win10-x64": {}
},

Please note that the "win10-x64" should be changed to match the architecture of the machine your server will be running on. For a complete list of runtime IDs (RID) supported by the .net core, visit https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/articles/core/rid-catalog

Save your changes to the project.json file and run the restore command:

dotnet restore

And then build

dotnet build

You can find the *.exe file inside the bin/Debug/netcoreapp[version]/[RID].

Please note that if you run this executable from this folder, your models, views and controllers will not be found by the executable and your page will be blank.