In contrast to Mono with .NET Framework .exes, you can't run .NET 5 .exe files on Linux even with the runtime installed.
So while for the .NET Framework you only needed to compile a single .exe which could run on all platforms thanks to Mono, with .NET 5 you need to build one executable/binary for each platform...
On the plus side, this binary is basically just a small starter binary (if you don't compile in single file mode),
which then loads all the real application and all its
endencies as DLLs, which should be the same for all platforms.
This means that it should be possible to combine the outputs of these builds into a single folder,
containing all starter binaries for all platforms. Didn't try this out yet, though.
This did not work :(
- self-contained: The output comes with all .NET system DLLs, the user doesn't need .NET Runtime installed on their system
- single file: The output is a single file instead of a directory full of separate (DLL) files
- trimmed: The output is trimmed, that means unused code gets removed from the DLLs. Only applicable to self-contained builds.
These two options can be toggled on and off independently – you can publish a runtime-dependent single binary, you can also publish a runtime-independent file bundle, or the other two combinations.
Additionally self-contained outputs can be trimmed, which reduces the total size. Only applicable to self-contained builds.
The defaults when building for Linux is --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=false -p:PublishTrimmed=false.
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/single-file#publish-a-single-file-app---cli
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/deploying/trim-self-contained
dotnet publish -c release -r linux-x64 --self-contained false
Lowest size, users need the .NET 5 runtime installed on their system.
dotnet publish -c release -r linux-x64 --self-contained true
Highest size, users don't need the .NET 5 runtime installed on their system.
dotnet publish -c release -r linux-x64 --self-contained false -p:PublishSingleFile=true
Easy to install for users, still need the .NET 5 runtime installed on their system.
dotnet publish -c release -r linux-x64 --self-contained true -p:PublishSingleFile=true
Easiest to install for users, just a single file in total, no runtime needed.
dotnet publish -c release -r linux-x64 --self-contained yes -p:PublishSingleFile=false -p:PublishTrimmed=true
Slightly smaller binaries thanks to link-time trimming.
dotnet publish -c release -r linux-x64 --self-contained yes -p:PublishSingleFile=true -p:PublishTrimmed=true
Slightly smaller binaries thanks to link-time trimming.
The relevant output will always be in the ./bin/release/net5/linux-x64/publish/ folder.
It's either a single big executable file (together with a few *.pdb files for debugging, they don't need to be distributed),
or a whole bunch of files with a smaller executable file (starter).
To start the program, run the file named after the project.
In the case of the LunaMultiplayer server, it's Server (and Server.exe on Windows).
Using https://github.com/LunaMultiplayer/LunaMultiplayer/tree/master/Server
This compares the size of the final folders, excluding *.pdb files. Sizes in MegaBytes = 1 000 000 Bytes.
dotnet: 5.0.301
LunaMultiplayer: 0.28.0 / cb8cabd
| Size | Runtime-dependent | Self-contained | SC + Trimmed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multi-file | 4,1M | 76M | 46M |
| Single file | 4,0M | 64M | 34M |