Self-contained deployment runtime roll forward

.NET Core self-contained application deployments include both the .NET Core libraries and the .NET Core runtime. Starting in .NET Core 2.1 SDK (version 2.1.300), a self-contained application deployment publishes the highest patch runtime on your machine. By default, dotnet publish for a self-contained deployment selects the latest version installed as part of the SDK on the publishing machine. This enables your deployed application to run with security fixes (and other fixes) available during publish. The application must be republished to obtain a new patch. Self-contained applications are created by specifying -r <RID> on the dotnet publish command or by specifying the runtime identifier (RID) in the project file (csproj / vbproj) or on the command line.

Patch version roll forward overview

restore, build and publish are dotnet commands that can run separately. The runtime choice is part of the restore operation, not publish or build. If you call publish, the latest patch version will be chosen. If you call publish with the --no-restore argument, then you may not get the desired patch version because a prior restore may not have been executed with the new self-contained application publishing policy. In this case, a build error is generated with text similar to the following:

"The project was restored using Microsoft.NETCore.App version 2.0.0, but with current settings, version 2.0.6 would be used instead. To resolve this issue, make sure the same settings are used for restore and for subsequent operations such as build or publish. Typically this issue can occur if the RuntimeIdentifier property is set during build or publish but not during restore."

Note

restore and build can be run implicitly as part of another command, like publish. When run implicitly as part of another command, they are provided with additional context so that the right artifacts are produced. When you publish with a runtime (for example, dotnet publish -r linux-x64), the implicit restore restores packages for the linux-x64 runtime. If you call restore explicitly, it does not restore runtime packages by default, because it doesn't have that context.

How to avoid restore during publish

Running restore as part of the publish operation may be undesirable for your scenario. To avoid restore during publish while creating self-contained applications, do the following:

• Set the RuntimeIdentifiers property to a semicolon-separated list of all the RIDs to be published.
• Set the TargetLatestRuntimePatch property to true.

No-restore argument with dotnet publish options

If you want to create both self-contained applications and framework-dependent applications with the same project file, and you want to use the --no-restore argument with dotnet publish, then choose one of the following:

1. Prefer the framework-dependent behavior. If the application is framework-dependent, this is the default behavior. If the application is self-contained, and can use an unpatched 2.1.0 local runtime, set the TargetLatestRuntimePatch to false in the project file.

2. Prefer the self-contained behavior. If the application is self-contained, this is the default behavior. If the application is framework-dependent, and requires the latest patch installed, set TargetLatestRuntimePatch to true in the project file.

3. Take explicit control of the runtime framework version by setting RuntimeFrameworkVersion to the specific patch version in the project file.