Host ASP.NET Core on Linux with Nginx

This is a helper document guide how to setup, config and deploy an .NET Core Web Engine Hosting on an Ubuntu Server.

Access to Linux server

Run below command and input password

ssh username@hosting/ip

You can copy your local ssh key to server and no need password to login next time

ssh-copy-id -i .ssh/id_rsa username@hosting/ip

Install Nginx

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install nginx

Since Nginx was installed for the first time, explicitly start it by running:

sudo systemctl start nginx

Config Nginx

To config Nginx as a reserve proxy to forward request to ASP.NET Core app, modify /etc/nginx/sites-available/default and replace or create a new sites-available

cd /etc/nginx/sites-available
touch site_name
sudo nano site_name

with the following contents

upstream site_name_svc  {
    server 127.0.0.1:5432;
}

server {
    server_name your_site_link;
    listen 80;

    root /usr/share/nginx/html;
    index index.html index.htm;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://site_name_svc;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme;
    }
}

This Nginx config file forwards incoming public traffic from port 80 to port 5432

Link your site to sites-enabled, then you can easy switch off site by remove syslink here and re-use again without re-config

sudo ln -s /etc/nginx/sites-available/kkday-test /etc/nginx/sites-enabled

Verify your config files

sudo nginx -t

If successful, reload Nginx to pickup the changes

sudo service nginx reload

Monitoring application

Use systemd and create a service file to start and monitor the underlying web app. systemd is an init system that provides many powerful features for starting, stopping, and managing processes.

Create service file

sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/service_name.service

and write the content like below

[Unit]
Description=Example .NET Web API Application running on Ubuntu

[Service]
WorkingDirectory=/path-to-your-app
ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /path-to-your-app/working-file.dll
Restart=always
RestartSec=10  # Restart service after 10 seconds if dotnet service crashes
SyslogIdentifier=dotnet-example
User=www-data
Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production
Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Note: If the user www-data isn’t used by the configuration, the user defined here must be created first and given proper ownership for files.

Save the file and enable the service.

systemctl enable service_name.service

Start the service and verify that it’s running.

systemctl start service_name.service
systemctl status service_name.service

Now you can access your app from a browser on local machine via http://localhost