rh-dotnetcore11 package seems to be out of date

[bloudraak]

I'm trying to create a build process for a ASP.NET Core application that was created using Visual Studio 2017 on Windows 10.

cd src
dotnet restore
dotnet build

This has been automated using build.cmd.

My next objective is to create a build.sh for RHEL 7, which would end up with an RPM.  To prepare for that I did the following:

1. Create an RHEL 7.3 virtual machine
2. Followed the instructions to install dotnet core 1.1 in the VM. 

I then ran the following commands on Windows 10 to create a self-contained deployment.

dotnet restore --runtime rhel.7-x64
dotnet publish --framework netcoreapp1.1 --runtime rhel.7-x64

I then SFTP the output over to the VM and the application works as expected.

I then cloned the project to the RHEL VM and then tried to execute the following commands:

cd src
dotnet restore
dotnet build

However it failed with the following errors:

[werners@localhost src]$ dotnet restore
warn : The folder '/home/werners/development/hello/src' does not contain a project to restore.
[werners@localhost src]$ dotnet build
Couldn't find 'project.json' in current directory
[werners@localhost src]$

This looks rather suspicious.  So I logged out and logged back in and the ran the following commands:

[werners@localhost ~]$ scl enable rh-dotnetcore11 bash
[werners@localhost ~]$ dotnet --version
1.0.0-preview2-1-003176

On Windows, the version returns the following:

S:\hello\src>dotnet --version
1.0.3

So it looks like rh-dotnetcore11 doesn't have the latest released version of .NET core command line.

To validate, I ran the following as root.

[root@localhost ~]# yum install rh-dotnetcore11
Loaded plugins: langpacks, product-id, search-disabled-repos, subscription-manager
Package rh-dotnetcore11-1.0-1.el7.x86_64 already installed and latest version
Nothing to do

What am I missing?

[bloudraak]

I also posed this question on StackOverflow since this forums doesn't seem that active.

[rickjwagner]

Hi Werner,

You're right, Red Hat's .NET Core 1.1 does not provide support for the newer build configuration file.  Details can be found in the article at [1].

Hope that helps,

Rick

[1] https://access.redhat.com/solutions/2997371

[bloudraak]

I get access denied when visiting that link, even though I'm signed in.

[rickjwagner]

Hi Werner,

It looks like that article is for 'subscribers only', meaning Red Hat portal users.  (Not developers.redhat.com users.)  Do you have a Red Hat account?  If so, please give it a try.

If not, I can summarize the article here:

- There is a gap, .csproj projects will not work under 1.1 for RHEL.

- This will be fixed with the release of 2.0, later this year

- In the meanwhile, it's best to keep the tooling aligned with the server runtime.  (i.e. don't use the later version of Visual Studio.  Use the version that was available when the server was provided.)

Hope that helps,

Rick