C# Applications Deployed With Docker and Mono

23/3/2015
2-minute read

Lately I’ve been working a lot with Mono , and building C# applications on Linux. Just recently I discovered the official mono image in the Docker Hub Repo . This image comes with xbuild and NuGet (tools we need for building).

So lets do a little work and get a mono application up and running (note I’m using a company application and will remove any references that may be sensitive.) I start by pulling the application’s source code down beside the Dockerfile :

# tree -L 3 .
.
├── Company.Session
│   ├── README.md
│   └── src
│   ├── Company.Session
│   ├── Company.Session.SessionService
│   ├── Company.Session.sln
│   ├── Company.Session.sln.DotSettings
│   └── Company.Session.Tests
└── Dockerfile

5 directories, 4 files

The Dockerfile handles the build, running, and network exposing for this app:

# The Official Mono Docker container
# https://registry.hub.docker.com/_/mono/
FROM mono:3.12

MAINTAINER nessy "nessy@...."

# The TCP ports this Docker container exposes the the host.
EXPOSE 80

ENV LISTEN_ON http://*:80/
ENV POSTGRESQL_USER_ID root
ENV POSTGRESQL_USER_PW password
ENV POSTGRESQL_HOST 172.17.42.1
ENV POSTGRESQL_PORT 5432
ENV POSTGRESQL_DATABASE session
ENV POSTGRESQL_SEARCH_PATH public

# Add the project tarball to Docker container
ADD Company.Session /var/mono/Company.Session/
WORKDIR /var/mono/Company.Session/src/

# Build our project
RUN nuget restore Company.Session.sln
RUN xbuild Company.Session.sln

# Change to our artifact directory
WORKDIR /var/mono/Company.Session/src/Company.Session.SessionService/bin/Debug

# Entry point should be mono binary
ENTRYPOINT mono Company.Session.SessionService.exe

All that is needed now is to build the Docker image:

# docker build --no-cache -t session:0.1 .

After the build we should have some new images:

# docker images
REPOSITORY  TAG   IMAGE ID      CREATED VIRTUAL   SIZE
session     0.1   e886dc0f6db2  3 minutes ago     405.3 MB
mono        3.12  ad04eb901ba0  2 weeks ago       348.7 MB

Let’s start the new session image and bind it’s exposed port locally to 2345 :

# docker run -d -p 2345:80 e886dc0f6db2
d8c4a7088da8ba0874c63e30e564a077b1c1a544825d7d1e148862b6b81f5600

We should now have a running Docker container:

# docker ps
CONTAINER ID IMAGE COMMAND CREATED STATUS PORTS NAMES
d8c4a7088da8 session:0.1 /bin/sh -c 'mono Big 12 seconds ago Up 11 seconds 0.0.0.0:2345->80/tcp stoic_lalande

The Docker command logs will display the output from the running command.

# docker logs d8c4a7088da8
{"date":"2015-03-24T01:44:30.3285150+00:00","level":"INFO","appname":"Company.Session.SessionService.exe","logger":"Topshelf.HostFactory","thread":"1","ndc":"(null)","message":"Configuration Result:\n[Success] Name Company.Session.SessionService\n[Success] ServiceName Company.Session.SessionService"}

...

And lastly we should verify the TCP port mapping is working and we can hit it from the host:

# curl -I localhost:2345
HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Location: http://localhost/metadata
Vary: Accept
X-Powered-By: ServiceStack/4.036 Unix/Mono
Server: Mono-HTTPAPI/1.0
Date: Tue, 24 Mar 2015 01:46:06 GMT
Content-Length: 0
Keep-Alive: timeout=15,max=100

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