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Install .NET SDK with Snap

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This article describes how to install the .NET SDK snap package. .NET SDK snap packages are provided by and maintained by Canonical. Snaps are a great alternative to the package manager built into your Linux distribution.

A snap is a bundle of an app and its dependencies that works across many different Linux distributions. Snaps are discoverable and installable from the Snap Store. For more information about Snap, see Getting started with Snap.

Caution

Snap installations of .NET may have problems running .NET tools. If you wish to use .NET tools, we recommend that you install .NET using the dotnet-install script or the package manager for the particular Linux distribution.

It's a known issue that the dotnet watch command doesn't work when .NET is installed via Snap.

If you're going to use .NET tools or the dotnet watch command, we recommend that you install .NET using the dotnet-install script.

Prerequisites

  • Linux distribution that supports snap.
  • snapd the snap daemon.

Your Linux distribution might already include snap. Try running snap from a terminal to see if the command works. For a list of supported Linux distributions, and instructions on how to install snap, see Installing snapd.

.NET releases

Microsoft publishes .NET under two different support policies, Long Term Support (LTS) and Standard Term Support (STS). The quality of all releases is the same. The only difference is the length of support. LTS releases get free support and patches for three years. STS releases get free support and patches for 18 months. For more information, see .NET Support Policy.

The versions of .NET that are currently supported by Microsoft are:

  • 8.0 (LTS)—Support ends November 10, 2026.
  • 6.0 (LTS)—Support ends November 12, 2024.

Other entities that build and release .NET might introduce different support policies. Be sure to check with them to understand how .NET is supported.

1. Install the SDK

Snap packages for the .NET SDK are all published under the same identifier: dotnet-sdk. A specific version of the SDK can be installed by specifying the channel. The SDK includes both the ASP.NET Core and .NET runtime, versioned to the SDK.

Tip

The Snapcraft .NET SDK package page includes distribution-specific instructions on how to install Snapcraft and .NET.

  1. Open a terminal.

  2. Use snap install to install the .NET SDK snap package. For example, the following command installs the latest/stable channel, which is the default.

    sudo snap install dotnet-sdk --classic
    • The --classic parameter is required.
    • Use the --channel parameter to specify which version to install. If this parameter is omitted, latest/stable is used. For example, --channel 8.0/stable installs .NET SDK 8.0.

The dotnet snap alias is automatically created and mapped to the snap package's dotnet command.

The following table lists the package channels you can install:

.NET version Snap package channel
8 (LTS) 8.0/stable
latest/stable
lts/stable
7 7.0/stable (out of support)
6 (LTS) 6.0/stable
5 5.0/stable (out of support)
3.1 3.1/stable (out of support)
2.1 2.1/stable (out of support)

2. Export the install location

The DOTNET_ROOT environment variable is often used by tools to determine where .NET is installed. When .NET is installed through Snap, this environment variable isn't configured. You should configure the DOTNET_ROOT environment variable in your profile. The path to the snap uses the following format: /snap/{package}/current.

export DOTNET_ROOT=/snap/dotnet-sdk/current

Export the environment variable permanently

The preceding export command only sets the environment variable for the terminal session in which it was run.

You can edit your shell profile to permanently add the commands. There are many different shells available for Linux and each has a different profile. For example:

  • Bash Shell: ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bashrc
  • Korn Shell: ~/.kshrc or .profile
  • Z Shell: _~/.zshrc* or .zprofile

Edit the appropriate source file for your shell and add export DOTNET_ROOT=/snap/dotnet-sdk/current.

3. Use the .NET CLI

Open a terminal and type dotnet.

dotnet

The following output is displayed:

Usage: dotnet [options]
Usage: dotnet [path-to-application]

Options:
  -h|--help         Display help.
  --info            Display .NET information.
  --list-sdks       Display the installed SDKs.
  --list-runtimes   Display the installed runtimes.

path-to-application:
  The path to an application .dll file to execute.

To learn how to use the .NET CLI, see .NET CLI overview.

Troubleshooting

The dotnet terminal command doesn't work

Snap packages can map an alias to a command provided by the package. By default, the .NET SDK snap packages create an alias for the dotnet command. If the alias wasn't created or was previously removed, the following command shows how to map the alias:

sudo snap alias dotnet-sdk.dotnet dotnet

Can't install Snap on WSL2

systemd must be enabled on the WSL2 instance before Snap can be installed.

  1. Open /etc/wsl.conf in a text editor of your choice.

  2. Paste in the following configuration:

    [boot]
systemd=true

  3. Save the file and restart the WSL2 instance through PowerShell. Use the wsl.exe --shutdown command.

Can't resolve the dotnet command or SDK

It's common for other apps, such as a code IDE or an extension in Visual Studio Code, to try to resolve the location of the .NET SDK. Typically, discovery is done by checking the DOTNET_ROOT environment variable, or figuring out where the dotnet executable is located. A snap-installed .NET SDK might confuse these apps. When these apps can't resolve the .NET SDK, an error similar to one of the following messages is displayed:

  • The SDK 'Microsoft.NET.Sdk' specified could not be found
  • The SDK 'Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Web' specified could not be found
  • The SDK 'Microsoft.NET.Sdk.Razor' specified could not be found

Try the following steps to fix the issue:

  1. Making sure that you export the DOTNET_ROOT environment variable permanently.

  2. Try to symbolic link the snap dotnet executable to the location that the program is looking for.

    Two common paths the dotnet command is looking for are:

    • /usr/local/bin/dotnet
    • /usr/share/dotnet

    Use the following command to create a symbolic link to the snap package:

    ln -s /snap/dotnet-sdk/current/dotnet /usr/local/bin/dotnet

TLS/SSL Certificate errors

When .NET is installed through Snap, it's possible that on some distributions the .NET TLS/SSL certificates might not be found and you might receive an error during restore:

Processing post-creation actions...
Running 'dotnet restore' on /home/myhome/test/test.csproj...
  Restoring packages for /home/myhome/test/test.csproj...
/snap/dotnet-sdk/27/sdk/2.2.103/NuGet.targets(114,5): error : Unable to load the service index for source https://api.nuget.org/v3/index.json. [/home/myhome/test/test.csproj]
/snap/dotnet-sdk/27/sdk/2.2.103/NuGet.targets(114,5): error :   The SSL connection could not be established, see inner exception. [/home/myhome/test/test.csproj]
/snap/dotnet-sdk/27/sdk/2.2.103/NuGet.targets(114,5): error :   The remote certificate is invalid according to the validation procedure. [/home/myhome/test/test.csproj]

To resolve this problem, set a few environment variables:

export SSL_CERT_FILE=[path-to-certificate-file]
export SSL_CERT_DIR=/dev/null

The certificate location varies by distribution. Here are the locations for the distributions where the issue has been observed:

Distribution Location
Fedora /etc/pki/ca-trust/extracted/pem/tls-ca-bundle.pem
OpenSUSE /etc/ssl/ca-bundle.pem
Solus /etc/ssl/certs/ca-certificates.crt

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