How to deploy an ASP.NET Core application on GNU/Linux with Apache?

First I want to clarify that to "package" the application, prior to deployment, the command must be used dnu publish, to see the list of options you can use: dnu publish --help.

After packing, in the folder where the packing result is put (you can use the option -oto specify it) there will be a folder approotwith a utility web, this will be the one called from the server .

It should be noted that it is possible to expose the application without the need for a reverse proxy. Kestrel boots on port 500x and changing it to port 80 would force root . You can, if you wish, use iptables to redirect requests to the kestrel process on port 500x, but this would bring down, I think, the server already dispatching on this port.

In addition to the above, Kestrel is not a production server and, as you noted in the question, it is recommended to use something like Apache or nginx. You say that at the moment you have Apache, I would think that it is possible to use it for this purpose but I have not seen it, I currently use nginx (without Docker, I have not needed it yet) for this.

What you need is to configure Apache as a Reverse Proxy so that requests made to the directory aspnet5/fxare redirected to your ASP.NET Core application.

http://subdominio.dominio.com/aspnet5/fx --> http://localhost:5000/aspnet5/fx

The steps to perform this configuration are as follows:

1. Install and enable Apache modules for Reverse Proxy

   sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-proxy-html libxml2-dev
   sudo a2enmod proxy proxy_ajp proxy_http rewrite deflate headers proxy_balancer proxy_connect proxy_html
   sudo service apache2 restart 
   

2. Modify your Apache website configuration to add the redirect (usually the file 000-default.conflocated in /etc/apache2/sites-enabled)

   <VirtualHost *:*>
      ...
   
      ProxyPreserveHost On
      ProxyPass /aspnet5/fx/ http://localhost:5000/aspnet5/fx/
      ProxyPassReverse /aspnet5/fx/ http://localhost:5000/aspnet5/fx/
      ServerName localhost
   </VirtualHost>
   

3. Configure the url http://localhost:5000/aspnet5/fx/in the ASP.NET Core app. This is done by adding in the file hosting.jsonlocated at the root of the project

   {
       "server.urls": "http://localhost:5000/aspnet5/fx/"
   }
   

This last step is necessary so that the routes that refer to the root of the application are resolved, that is, those that start with ~/but in the RC1 version it is not working

What I recommend is that you create another subdomain aspnet5-fx.subdominio.dominio.comthat is the one that provides direct access to your ASP.NET Core application.

In this case what you would have to do is:

1. Create an Apache configuration file for your new domain (you could do this by running the command sudo nano /etc/apache2/sites-available/001-aspnet.conf)

2. The content of this file would be the following

   <VirtualHost *:*>
      ProxyPreserveHost On
      ProxyPass / http://localhost:5000/
      ProxyPassReverse / http://localhost:5000/
      ServerName aspnet5-fx.subdominio.dominio.com
   </VirtualHost>
   

3. Lastly you have to enable the new website and reload the apache configuration

   sudo a2ensite 001-aspnet
   sudo service apache2 reload
   

Something that is also important is that the files of your ASP.NET Core applications should not be located inside the Apache content directory , that is, in /var/www/aspnet5/fx, because doing de reverse proxyis not necessary and if something fails in the configuration, they could end up in access code files. The recommended thing would be to locate ourselves, for example, in/opt/aspnet5/fx