Running ASP.Net on a Linux based server

Question

For a developer with a Java background, I am interested in exploring software development using the ASP.NET tools/platform as well.

Java web applications (.jsp and servlets) can run on many server platforms.

Question: Will a .NET web application be able to run in a Linux based server? Considering the scenario of not being able to use a Windows server for hosting a web app.

Answer 1

For ASP.NET on Linux, check out Mono.

That said, thousands of sites run on Windows Server without any issues. A poorly-configured server with any OS will be vulnerable; Linux won't save you from a poor admin.

So I guess my "best practice" for deplying an ASP.NET app would be to use Windows Server 2008 (likely Web edition). And hire a good administrator.

Answer 2

So I know this is an older question but I think it could stand an updated answer.

Microsoft has officially released asp.net vnext and its open source and deploy-able to both Linux and Mac. Its all still pretty new but does rely on the latest builds of mono and thus currently needs you to compile the mono-framework but in time I suspect that it will be easier to access as various linux distros release updated versions of mono. This is a how to setup guide

This information may be somewhat volatile and with updates is due to change.

Update ASP.NET CORE 11/10/2017

• asp.net vnext is now known as asp.net core.
• asp.net core is being treated as a high priority in Microsoft due in part to its use with microservice architecture and docker and container technologies
• It has become much more compatible with existing .net libraries due to .net standard 2.0.
• It performs well when compared to other technology stacks such as go and node.js

Answer 3

Now a days .Net is run in multiple platforms,like linux ,Mac os etc. but mono is not fully platform independent ,Because to deploy .NET in another OS required third party software.so it is not like java platform independent.

Mono is running in different platform ,because of JIT is there in different os.

Mono is not fully success in moonlight(silver light in .NET) .Not only Research is going on.

Mono uses XSP2 server or apache . some of the big companies are using this project,Some of the robotic project are also running on mono.

For more details http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page.

Answer 4

Now you can publish ASP.NET 5 app to Docker on Linux with Visual Studio. See the below post from Scott Haselman

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/PublishingAnASPNET5AppToDockerOnLinuxWithVisualStudio.aspx

Answer 5

There is the Mono Project from Novell that will allow you to run ASP.Net on Apache.

http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page

Answer 6

It depends what specific .NET technologies you're using. The Mono Project provides an Apache module (mod_mono) for running ASP.NET sites, and from what I gather it works well.

Mono doesn't support all the .NET APIs, though - notably WPF (and possibly WCF too, I can't remember) - but it does provide good support for much else of the framework.

If you're starting from scratch and particularly want to target non-Windows servers, then ensuring your project works with Mono would be a good goal to aim for. However, if you need particular APIs or language features that are not supported by Mono, then you will need to use a Windows server for deployment. It's a design-time/architectural choice that should make up front.