Deploying ASP.NET 5 RC1 on Linux with Kestrel and Entity Framework 7 on Alibaba Cloud

The post introduces the recent release of ASP.NET 5 RC1, highlighting its cross‑platform capabilities and its significance for .NET developers in China.

Following the release, the author upgraded the demo site http://about.cnblogs.com to ASP.NET 5 RC1 and added database access using Entity Framework 7 RC1 to a SQL Server instance hosted on Alibaba Cloud RDS. A specific collation (SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CS_AS) is required to work around a SqlClient bug.

Database migration commands used:

dnx ef migrations add FirstMigration
dnx ef database update

The connection string is read from config.json. The backend web server runs on Kestrel, while the front‑end traffic is routed through Alibaba Cloud Load Balancer. Direct access to Kestrel is fast, but requests via the load balancer hang for up to a minute, suggesting a TCP communication issue.

Project file structure:

.
├── config.json
├── Controllers
│   ├── AboutController.cs
│   └── HomeController.cs
├── Data
│   ├── EfDbContext.cs
│   ├── ITabNavRepository.cs
│   └── TabNavRepository.cs
├── Extensions
│   └── HtmlHelperExtensions.cs
├── Models
│   └── TabNav.cs
├── project.json
├── project.lock.json
├── Startup.cs
├── Views
│   ├── About
│   │   ├── Ad.cshtml
│   │   ├── Contact.cshtml
│   │   ├── Intro.cshtml
│   │   └── Job.cshtml
│   ├── Shared
│   │   └── _Layout.cshtml
│   └── _ViewStart.cshtml
└── wwwroot

Key excerpt from project.json (relevant sections only):

{
  "webroot": "wwwroot",
  "exclude": ["wwwroot"],
  "commands": {
    "kestrel": "Microsoft.AspNet.Hosting --server Microsoft.AspNet.Server.Kestrel --server.urls http://*:8001",
    "ef": "EntityFramework.Commands"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "Microsoft.AspNet.Server.Kestrel": "1.0.0-rc1-final",
    "Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc": "6.0.0-*",
    "Microsoft.AspNet.StaticFiles": "1.0.0-rc1-final",
    "Microsoft.AspNet.Diagnostics": "1.0.0-rc1-final",
    "EntityFramework.MicrosoftSqlServer": "7.0.0-rc1-final",
    "EntityFramework.Commands": "7.0.0-rc1-final",
    "Microsoft.Extensions.Logging.Console": "1.0.0-rc1-final",
    "System.Runtime.Serialization.Primitives": "4.0.10-*",
    "System.Net.Security": "4.0.0-*"
  },
  "frameworks": {
    "dnxcore50": {}
  }
}

Relevant portion of Startup.cs showing configuration and service registration:

using System;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.AspNet.Builder;
using Microsoft.Extensions.DependencyInjection;
using Microsoft.Data.Entity;
using CNBlogs.AboutUs.Data;
using Microsoft.Dnx.Runtime;
using Microsoft.Extensions.PlatformAbstractions;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Configuration;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using Microsoft.Extensions.Logging;

namespace CNBlogs.AboutUs.Web
{
    public class Startup
    {
        public Startup(IApplicationEnvironment appEnv)
        {
            IConfigurationBuilder builder = new ConfigurationBuilder()
                .SetBasePath(appEnv.ApplicationBasePath)
                .AddJsonFile("config.json", false);
            Configuration = builder.Build();
        }
        public IConfiguration Configuration { get; set; }
        public void Configure(IApplicationBuilder app, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
        {
            loggerFactory.AddConsole();
            app.UseDeveloperExceptionPage();
            app.UseMvcWithDefaultRoute();
            app.UseStaticFiles();
            app.UseRuntimeInfoPage();
        }
        public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
        {
            services.AddMvc();
            services.AddEntityFramework()
                .AddSqlServer()
                .AddDbContext<EfDbContext>(options =>
                {
                    options.UseSqlServer(Configuration["data:ConnectionString"]);
                });
            services.AddTransient<ITabNavRepository, TabNavRepository>();
        }
    }
}

The author concludes that SQL Server can now be accessed cross‑platform, and if Kestrel’s stability improves, more .NET sites will be migrated to Linux using ASP.NET 5.