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Aspnet core 1.1 and Visual studio 2017 running in Docker container in OSX

I happen to have OSX as host and Win10 as virtual machine.
I have also mapped a folder so it is reachable from both OSX and Windows.
OSX has Docker installed.

Create the project in Windows/Visual studio 2017

Create a blank solution somewhere both Windows and OSX can reach. In this article I chose

\\mac\home\documents\PROJEKT

Whatever dotnet version is visible at the top of the dialogue is not of interesting as we are creating a solution file and not much more and then we add Dotnet core specific stuff. You can search for the template through “empty” or “blank”.

Add an Aspnet core application project. Keep the standard name of simplicity. The path is in the solution \\Mac\Home\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1

Dotnet version is still not necessary as it refers to Dotnet framework and we are caring about Dotnet core.

Select Dotnet core 1.1. This text is written in August 2017 and Dotnet core 2 is due November. Select WebApi. Do not add docker support. It would probably not make any change but in this exercise we are targeting running the container in OSX. If you change your mind and do want Docker-for-windows support you can always do that later with the click of a button.

When the project is added compile and run to see that all cog wheels are in place and in working order.

Tip from the trenches: Ctrl-F5 compiles, starts the web server and pop ups a web browser in one click, without having to start the debugger.

Note the URL. It is something like http://localhost:2058/api/values where /api/values is something to briefly remember. See that in the browser window there is the text [“value1″,”value2”]. It is created through the Get method in class Controllers/ValuesController.cs the “normal MVC way”.

Publish in Windows

If you right click the project (=activate the context menu in the solution explorer pane on the WebApplication1 project) there is a choice “Publish…”. AFAIK it is used for Windows or Dotnet framework stuff so leave it be.

Instead we use the CLI for restoring, publishing and activating.

If you open the console in windows you cannot use the UNC path we have put the project in. So instead use pushd like so:

> pushd \\Mac\Home\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1

Then restore the files with dotnet restore. Restoring in this case means pulling in all dependencies so we have everything we need.

It will look someting like:

> dotnet restore
Restoring packages for V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1\WebApplication1.csproj…
Generating MSBuild file V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1\obj\WebApplication1.csproj.nuget.g.props.
Writing lock file to disk. Path: V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1\obj\project.assets.json
Restore completed in 1,58 sec for V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1\WebApplication1.csproj.
Restore completed in 1,81 sec for V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1\WebApplication1.csproj.
NuGet Config files used:
C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\NuGet\NuGet.Config
C:\Program Files (x86)\NuGet\Config\Microsoft.VisualStudio.Offline.config
Feeds used:
https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\NuGetPackages\

Now publish with publish:

> dotnet publish 
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 15.1.1012.6693
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
WebApplication1 -> V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1\bin\Debug\netcoreapp1.1\WebApplication1.dll

As we didn’t specify an output path we get the result in bin\Debug\netcoreapp1.1\.

> dotnet run
Hosting environment: Production
Content root path: V:\Documents\PROJEKT\Solution1\WebApplication1
Now listening on: http://localhost:5000
Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.

Note the back slashes and that I never said to change OS. We have just started the web server in Windows.

Check it by opening a web browser and go to http://localhost:5000/api/values

You should have [“value1″,”value2”] as output. Nothing surprising.

Shut down the application (ctrl-c in the console) and refresh the browser to verify that we really are surfing to our site and not Visual studio and IIS(express).

If you want to go spelunking in the container try opening a terminal directly or connecting one.

OSX

Open an OSX terminal at your web project, where WebApplication1.csproj is. Typically something like

/Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1

If you do a dotnet run now you get an error.

> dotnet run
/usr/local/share/dotnet/sdk/1.0.1/Sdks/Microsoft.NET.Sdk/build/Microsoft.PackageDependencyResolution.targets(154,5): error : Assets file ‘/Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/V:/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/obj/project.assets.json’ not found. Run a NuGet package restore to generate this file. [/Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/WebApplication1.csproj]
/var/folders/5l/1bssc0z152s_shv8j8nb9htm0000gn/T/.NETCoreApp,Version=v1.1.AssemblyAttributes.cs(4,20): error CS0400: The type or namespace name ‘System’ could not be found in the global namespace (are you missing an assembly reference?) [/Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/WebApplication1.csproj]

Alas restore, publish and run.

> dotnet restore
  Restoring packages for /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/WebApplication1.csproj…
  Restore completed in 784.3 ms for /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/WebApplication1.csproj.
  Generating MSBuild file /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/obj/WebApplication1.csproj.nuget.g.props.
  Writing lock file to disk. Path: /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/obj/project.assets.json
  Restore completed in 1.7 sec for /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/WebApplication1.csproj.
  NuGet Config files used:
      /Users/username/.nuget/NuGet/NuGet.Config
  Feeds used:
      https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json

Why we need to restore it again is something I haven’t grokked yet. To be honest – if I hadn’t tricked you into, unnecessarily, restoring on the Windows machine first you wouldn’t have noticed.

> dotnet publish
Microsoft (R) Build Engine version 15.1.548.43366
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
  WebApplication1 -> /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1/WebApplication1.dll

> dotnet run
Hosting environment: Production
Content root path: /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1
Now listening on: http://localhost:5000
Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.

Open another console and curl:

> curl localhost:5000/api/values

to get the result:

[“value1″,”value2”]

You can of course open a web browser to do the same.

Don’t forget to stop the application if you want to continue as otherwise a file might get locked.

Start container

Install Docker on your mac unless you already have.
You can probably do whatever is described here on your Win10 machine with Docker for windows.
But I happen to have OSX and a virtualised Windows10 through Parallels. It is said to be possible to run Docker for windows in Parallels but then I have to fork out another 50€ (per year?) for the Pro version; and having a virtualised Windows to virtualise yet a machine creates a performance penalty also on the host OS. My machine is running warm and noisy as it is.

Start

> docker run -p80:80 -ti –rm -v /Users/username/Documents/PROJEKT/Solution1/WebApplication1/bin/Debug/netcoreapp1.1:/Web microsoft/aspnetcore  /bin/bash -c ‘cd /Web/publish; dotnet WebApplication1.dll’
Hosting environment: Production
Content root path: /Web/publish
Now listening on: http://+:80
Application started. Press Ctrl+C to shut down.

Caveat: For almost a full day I got the error message docker: invalid reference format.
which was somehow related to microsoft/dotnet:1.1.2-runtime
which was wrong because when I rewrote the very same text it suddenly started. My first guess was that there was a hidden character somewhere but I rewinded to an earlier command that had failed and suddenly it worked.

If you care already now about the parameters for docker run they are:

-p80:80
I did not want to make this quick start unnecessary complex by having lots of different ports so everything is running on port 80.
With that said; as Kestrel (the web server we instantiated in Program.cs runs in aspnet it talks on port 80. Then we open a hole in the container from port 80 to port 80. This latter is what -p80:80 means.

-ti
This gives us a terminal, of sorts, and something about how it receives commands.

-rm
This one cleans up after our run so there is no halted container wasting hard drive space when the container stops.

-v /User….:/Web…
This parameter lets the continer use /Web to reach folder /User… where we have put our code.

microsoft/aspnetcore
This is the name of the image we use. An image is to a container what a class is to an object.
In this article we don’t adapt the microsoft/aspnetcore image, created by microsoft especially to run aspnet core solutions, to anything but use it as it is.
As we have not specified a version we get the latest.
Microsoft has many images for different uses.

/bin/bas…tion1.dll’
Execute a command in bash.
The command happens to be “start the web server”.

Call the web server in the container

Then open another terminal and curl:

> curl localhost:80/api/values
[“value1″,”value2”]

Yay! The web server in the container runs your dotnet core web application.

dotnet publish command returns npm error

When trying to

a dotnet core 1.1 project you might receive

The remedy is to install NPM.

If you are running OSX you probably got Homebrew with the installation.
So just

Then you might get

No executable found matching command “bower”

which means that Bower is missing. According to https://github.com/dotnet/cli/issues/3293 you should install it through npm like so:

Run Docker Dotnet core aspnet 1.1 web server with mounted executable on OSX

Prerequisite

Install docker.

Install Dotnet Core 1.1.

Create web application

Create a directory “theapp”.

Open a terminal and, in the directory, execute:

Check it works.

Execute, in a terminal:

Or is it

?

Create container

In a terminal execute:
(after you have have updated “YourRootedPathAndFolder” appropriately.

and when it is finished churning through the long list of modules open a new terminal and execute

on your host to receive a smaller waterfall of HTML.

That should be it.

Troubleshooting

If you forget to do the dotnet restore

You get something like:

Project theapp (.NETCoreApp,Version=v1.1) was previously compiled. Skipping compilation.

Error: assembly specified in the dependencies manifest was not found — package: ‘Microsoft.AspNetCore.Antiforgery’, version: ‘1.0.1’, path: ‘lib/netstandard1.3/Microsoft.AspNetCore.Antiforgery.dll’

Attach and request

Run

in a terminal. Note the Container ID.

Then execute, after the b5a…f5 is updated appropriately.

Now you have a shell inside the container and should be able to get a result from:

Create a Dotnet aspnet core 1.1 web server in OSX

Install Dotnet core à la https://www.microsoft.com/net/core#macos

Create a folder and to to it.

Open a terminal (one cannot reuse any terminal from before dotnet was installed since the path is updated) and execute:

Open another terminal and execute:

A pile of HTML should scroll into view.

In the first terminal you can see the reaction.

Running Dotnet aspnet 1.1 in a Docker container on OSX without any Windows

Prerequisite

Install Docker on OSX.

Create Dockerfile

Create a file named Dockerfile in a new folder.
Its contents are:

Create image

Run image

See output

On the host:

and you should se a whole dab of HTMl. You can also watch it in your browser.

Starting Dotnet aspnet core 1.1 on OSX in a Docker container

Install Docker on OSX.

https://docs.docker.com/docker-for-mac/

Prepare local drive

(This is strictly not necessary but if you skip this you have to remove the -v and following path from the docker run command further down. You will also have to mkdir the app folder in the container before cd to it.)

Go to you your local Documents folder. Create a Docker folder. Inside it create a dotnetcore folder. This results in /Users/myname/Documents/Docker/dotnetcore.

Start container

Open a terminal and execute (after exchanging “myname” to your user’s name)

This will download the microsoft/dotnet image, start it, connect your host’s dotnetcore folder to an app folder inside the container, set an environment variable, publish the internal port 80 on port 80 and finally open a terminal inside the container; all in one go.

Start the web server

Now inside the container execute

Absolutely not necessary but if you

you will see something like

Start the web server through

This will also compile the code before starting the application.

See output

If you open

in your host’s web browser you should now see a page about Dotnet aspnet core.

That all there is to it!

Trouble shooting

If you don’t check that the web server is running and listening on port 80 locally. This is done by opening a new terminal and check the ContainerID through

Then you attach a terminal to the running container.

(but with proper id)

Now, inside the container, run

and you should get a boatload of HTML back. In the other terminal window you should see some reaction to the request.

Links

More thourough but for version 1.0

https://store.docker.com/images/6c038a68-be47-4d7e-bfd2-33a6fe75b9ac?tab=description

Virtual machine – developing on a VM

I have the host OSX for administrative tasks
and then one VM per Windows OS.

I would prefer to have one VM per customer but have not come around to it.
Setting up a new VM does not take that much time but installing Visual studio, Sqlserver, Chocolatey and configuring everything does. When Windows updates 7->8->8.1->10 I create new machine and copy stuff I need as I go; instead of updating the VM. This is my way of continuously cleaning my work space.

The only issue I have run into is multi monitor support that sometimes is a bit shaky to set up but it has stabilised every time. (as I write this my second monitor switches to green every time my screen saver has kicked in and I have to replug it)

I run Parallels which is not gratis and not even cheap. To add insult to injury they make sure to not support newer OSX and Windows versions as they come out. This means that the one time price (presently upgrade is 50€) has to be paid several times, like every other year or so.

I have not compared Parallels to their competitors Fusion and Virtualbox. AFAIK Fusion is about the same in both functionality and price. Virtualbox is free as in F/OSS.

The reason I started with Parallels instead of Virtualbox is twofold:
1) I was new to the host:OSX/vm:Win arena and wanted something someone said worked. (I did not want to buy a fancy pansy mac just to install windows on it)
2) By that time Virtualbox could not handle bootcamp.
My plan was to test to run Windows as a VM and if it wasn’t performant enough switch to bootcamp. Then I learned that to be able to run the vm as bootcamp it has to be configured as bootcamp to start with. I never did and I have never had the need.

(I would love to try to have the dev machine totally remote. Then I could have a phat machine without the fan noise.)

https://www.parallels.com/eu/products/desktop/
https://www.vmware.com/products/fusion
https://www.virtualbox.org

Mac OSX, Parallels, Windows 8, Visual studio 2012 and VS drops all keyboard events

For my fellow googlewithbingers out there:

If you run a setup like mine with Win8 running on OSX through Parallels and your VS2012 sometimes stops responding to key presses; activate another application, then press the windows/command button for getting the start screen and then choose VS2012.  Your already running VS gets focus and the keyboard is restored.

Don’t know why this works.  There are certainly better workarounds.  The problem with probably go away in the future.  But for now it saves me.

Talking to Neo4j running on OSX from Windows7

This is not a deep diving article but just a brain dump.  Maybe it will help someone.  At least it works on my machine.

I wanted to use Neo4j with dotnet.  So I put Neo4j as a server on the Mac and my regular dotnet stuff on a Win7 machine running through Parallels.

I don’t remember exactly what was needed to get Neo4j up and running but it was easy I recall.  Download.  Extract.  Find the right folder.  Type “neo4j start”. Open a browser.  Type “localhost:7474”.  Create a node.  Check it was created.  Done.
I opted for running Neo4j stand alone to keep my machine tidy – starting the Neo4j server every time I develop is easy.

Since I want to talk to Neo4j from another machine I need to bridge the network and open the firewall on the mac.  It’s just a google away even though the way to open the firewall seems to shifts with every OSX release.  To the better in my case.

A caveat that burned some time for me was that the admin GUI for Neo4j is set to only answer on localhost.  It is considered a good thing since there is no usr/pwd.  That is solved by updating the config and restarting the Neo4j server. Use http://yourmachine:7474 to check this.

On the Windows/Visual studio/Dotnet side I opted for Neo4jclient since it is under present development and open source.  The 2 top hits I found otherwise had their last update set in 2010.  It’s an easy install with Nuget.

Creating nodes from dotnet was easy.  I just followed the getting started.

That’s all I’ve done for now.

Install Windows8 through Parallells on Mac/OSX

Installing Windows8 consumer preview on a Max/OSX running Parallells works like a charm.  I even saw a button in Parallells to install Win8; I guess Parallells downloads and installs everything.  I had downloaded the gigs already so I chose to install from ISO.

It can also be an advantage to install on a mac since the touchpad is fantastic.

Next mission is to install Visualstudio11.

Update:

Visualstudio11 works.

Update:

Multitouch on the Mac mouse does not work when you write your own WPF applications as mentioned on Stackoverflow.