Combining Windows Server 2016 Container, ASP.NET 5 and Application Request Routing (ARR) using Docker

I recently did a blog post about how to get an ASP.NET 5 application to run in a Windows Server container using Docker. However, I kept thinking about that solution, and started wondering if I could add IIS Application Request Routing to the mix as well. What if I could have containers at different ports, and have IIS and ARR routing incoming requests to different ports based on the host for example. And apparently I could. So I decided to write another post about how I got it going.

Disclaimer: There is still some kinks to work out regarding the routing. Right now, I have to manually change the routing to point to the correct container IP every time it is started, as I don’t seem to find a way to assign my containers static IP addresses…

Disclaimer 2: I have no clue about how this is supposed to be done, but this seems to work… Smile

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Running ASP.NET 5 applications in Windows Server Containers using Windows Server 2016

A couple of days ago, I ended up watching a video about Windows Server 2016 at Microsoft Virtual Academy. I think it was A Deep Dive into Nano Server, but I’m not sure to be honest. Anyhow, they started talking about Windows Server Containers and Docker, and I got very interested.

I really like the idea of Docker, but since I’m a .NET dev, the whole Linux dependency is a bit of a turn-off to be honest. And yes, I know that ASP.NET 5 will be cross-platform and so on, but in the initial release of .NET Core, it will be very limited. So it makes it a little less appealing. However, with Windows Server Containers, I get the same thing, but on Windows. So all of the sudden, it got interesting to look at Docker. So I decided to get an ASP.NET 5 app up and running in a Windows Server Container. Actually, I decided to do it in 2 ways, but in this post I will cover the simplest way, and then I will do another post about the other way, which is more complicated but has some benefits…

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Trying to understand the versioning “mess” that is .NET 2015

Right now there is a lot of talk about the next iteration of the .NET platform, and the different versions and runtimes that is about to be released. Unfortunately, it has turned into a quite complicated situation when it comes to the versions of things being released.

I get quite a few question about how it all fits together, and I try answering them as best as I can. However, as the question keeps popping up over and over again, I thought I would sum up the situation as I have understood it.

Disclaimer: Everything in this post is “as I have understood it”. I am not working for Microsoft, and I am in no way or form guaranteeing that this is the right description. This is just how I understand the situation. Hopefully it is fairly close to the real world.

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ASP.NET 5 demo code from SweNug

As promised during my talk at SweNug Stockholm last week, I have now uploaded my code for anyone to play around with. I just want to highlight that it is based around VERY early bits, and new versions might cause problems. It is built using runtime 1.0.0-beta5-11533. But even if it changes, the code should give you a clue about how it works.

Code is available here: ASP.NET 5 Demo.zip (714.47 kb)

Getting the ASP.NET 5 samples to work on Windows with the “new” dnvm (and beta 5)

[UPDATE] If you clone the dev branch’s samples instead of the master branch, it should be easier. You will still need to update the Startup.cs file for now though. Pull-request made… (That was a long blog post to no use…still gives some insight into how it works though…) [END UPDATE]

[UPDATE 2] Now updated to beta-5 if anyone still wants it considering the update above… [END UPDATE 2]

Yesterday I finally had time to sit down and play with the new ASP.NET 5 runtime, which is something I have wanted to do for quite some time. However, it kind of annoyed me that I couldn’t just install the ASP.NET 5 runtime, clone the samples from GitHub and get started, as it generated a whole heap of errors. After an hour or so of Googling and trying things out, I finally got it working, so I thought I would write down what I did to get it to work.

Note: This codebase is moving ridiculously fast, so this post is going to be old within a very short while. Everything is based on the code as of today, March 20th 2015.

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