Run an ASP.NET Core App on Raspberry Pi With Docker

In my last article, I wrote about how to create a single-page Angular app using the .NET Core CLI, create a Docker image, and run it as a container in about 4 steps that take just minutes to execute. By modifying a single line in your Dockerfile, you can target the 32-bit ARM architecture needed to run the image as a container on a Raspberry Pi.

Here’s the one line that needs to change in the Dockerfile to make it runnable on ARM32 (old line is commented for reference):

# FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/aspnet:3.1 AS base
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/aspnet:3.1.2-buster-slim-arm32v7 AS base
WORKDIR /app
EXPOSE 80
EXPOSE 443

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:3.1 AS build
WORKDIR /src
COPY ["my-app.csproj", "./"]
RUN dotnet restore "./my-app.csproj"
COPY . .
WORKDIR "/src/."
RUN dotnet build "my-app.csproj" -c Release -o /app/build
RUN apt-get update && \
    apt-get install -y wget && \
    apt-get install -y gnupg2 && \
    wget -qO- https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_10.x | bash - && \
    apt-get install -y build-essential nodejs

FROM build AS publish
RUN dotnet publish "my-app.csproj" -c Release -o /app/publish

FROM base AS final
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=publish /app/publish .
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "my-app.dll"]

Note that the official list of available tags for different architectures can be found here. Consult this list to determine if newer images are available.

That’s it, though. Create your image, push it to Docker Hub, pull it on your Raspberry Pi, and run it just as you would locally. If you haven’t used Docker Hub before, you’ll need to login and create a repository. Check out the Docker Hub Quickstart for help. You may also need to run docker login on both machines to access your new repo.

# dev machine
docker build -t <dockerID>/repo .
docker push <dockerID>/repo

# raspberry pi
docker pull <dockerID>/repo
docker run -d -p 5000:80 <dockerID>/repo

Author: Adam Prescott

I'm enthusiastic and passionate about creating intuitive, great-looking software. I strive to find the simplest solutions to complex problems, and I embrace agile principles and test-driven development. View all posts by Adam Prescott