What kind of hosting it is if we run Kestrel as public facing web server.

Question

I created an ASP.NET Core MVC application and run it via the command line. This machine doesn't have an IIS. So kestrel is my public-facing web server.

Just wonder if will it come under "In Process", I believe not, because no w3wp process is involved.

Will it come under "Out Of Process"? Maybe because it is outside the w3wp process. But there is no proxy server involved as described in Microsoft documentation.

Could someone please confirm if is it Out Of Process or something else?

Answer 1

The word "process" used in the "In Process" and "Out Of Process" hoisting models denotes the IIS worker process (w3wp.exe). In both models, the IIS works as a reverse proxy.

In-process hosting

Out-of-process hosting

For details please refer to the following documents:

In-process hosting with IIS and ASP.NET Core
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/iis/in-process-hosting?view=aspnetcore-6.0

Out-of-process hosting with IIS and ASP.NET Core
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/host-and-deploy/iis/out-of-process-hosting?view=aspnetcore-6.0

As for the hosting not using the IIS please refer to the section "Kestrel" in the following document:

Web server implementations in ASP.NET Core
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/aspnet/core/fundamentals/servers/?view=aspnetcore-6.0&tabs=windows

Answer 2

it’s neither. Those are IIS hosting terms. In process means the IIS process loads and runs the app. Out of process means IIS starts the app as its own process and reverse proxy to it.

If you are going to run the app without IIS, you need to decide how to start it. Maybe as a service.