DotNET

.NET packages can be built with buildDotnetModule

More information about buildDotnetModule can be found in the nixpkgs manual Example build file:

{ fetchFromGitHub
, dotnetCorePackages
, buildDotnetModule
}:

buildDotnetModule rec {
  pname = "some_program";
  version = "some_version";

  src = fetchFromGitHub {
    owner = "some_owner";
    repo = pname;
    rev = "v${version}";
    hash = ""; # use e.g. `nix-prefetch-git`
  };

  projectFile = "SomeProject/SomeProject.csproj";
  dotnet-sdk = dotnetCorePackages.sdk_8_0;
  dotnet-runtime = dotnetCorePackages.runtime_8_0;
  nugetDeps = ./deps.nix; # to generate, set to `""`, then `nix-build -A fetch-deps && ./result`

  meta = with lib; {
    homepage = "some_homepage";
    description = "some_description";
    license = licenses.mit;
  };
}

If the fetch-deps script isn't working for whatever reason, you can manually run nuget-to-nix:

dotnet restore --packages=packageDir ./SomeProject.csproj
nuget-to-nix packageDir >deps.nix
rm -r packageDir

Remember to build and run the fetch-deps script after NuGet packages are updated, or building the derivation will fail.

Building non-.NET Core packages

Keep in mind that building projects which don't use the .NET SDK (formerly the .NET Core SDK) and its dotnet CLI tool isn't supported. For those projects, you'll have to heavily customise the buildDotnetModule build steps, or write a custom derivation.

Projects which target .NET Standard or .NET Framework (incl. Mono), but still use the new project structure and SDK, work as expected. Just remember to add `mono` to `buildInputs` and generate a wrapper script in `postInstall`.

Building ASP.NET packages

Currently building ASP.NET packages produces website that does not work correctly out of the box because the executable can not find ContentRoot and wwwroot, so all the static assets won't load.

.NET location: Not found

If running a .NET-build executable you get the above error, make sure the DOTNET_ROOT environment variable is set:

environment.sessionVariables = {
  DOTNET_ROOT = "${pkgs.dotnet-sdk}";
};

See : https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools/dotnet-environment-variables#net-sdk-and-cli-environment-variables

TargetFramework value was not recognized

error NETSDK1013: The TargetFramework value 'net6.0-windows' was not recognized. It may be misspelled. If not, then the TargetFrameworkIdentifier and/or TargetFrameworkVersion properties must be specified explicitly.

Wontfix: The project will build only on Windows.

NativeAOT

This is relevant for NixOS only.

nix-ld is needed:

{
  programs.nix-ld.enable = true;
}

Now we will need a bunch of native dependencies. Here's an example of a shell:

with import <nixpkgs> {};
pkgs.mkShell rec {

  dotnetPkg = 
    (with dotnetCorePackages; combinePackages [
      sdk_7_0
    ]);

  deps = [
    zlib
    zlib.dev
    openssl
    dotnetPkg
  ];

  NIX_LD_LIBRARY_PATH = lib.makeLibraryPath ([
    stdenv.cc.cc
  ] ++ deps);
  NIX_LD = "${pkgs.stdenv.cc.libc_bin}/bin/ld.so";
  nativeBuildInputs = [ 
  ] ++ deps;

  shellHook = ''
    DOTNET_ROOT="${dotnetPkg}";
  '';
}

Global Tools

Local installation of .NET global tools is fully supported and preferred when possible - more info in the Microsoft docs.

For globally installing .NET tools, search if they are available as Nix packages - they are packaged as any other normal .NET binary, using buildDotnetModule. For .NET tools with no source available, or those hard to build from source, buildDotnetGlobalTool is available. See dotnet nixpkgs manual for more info.

Note that Nix-packaged .NET tools use a special wrapper (toggled by useDotnetFromEnv option in buildDotnetModule) that automatically picks up .NET install from the user environment. If you want to use a different SDK version with a Nix-packaged .NET tools than the default, make sure the dotnet CLI of your wanted SDK version is installed and available.

Example: Running Rider with dotnet & PowerShell

Rider package

pkgs.jetbrains.rider

dotnet.nix

with import <nixpkgs> {};

mkShell {
  name = "dotnet-env";
  packages = [
    (with dotnetCorePackages; combinePackages [
      sdk_6_0
      sdk_7_0
      sdk_8_0
    ])
    powershell
  ];
}

To execute Rider

nix-shell ./dotnet.nix --run 'nohup rider &'

This can be added as an alias to your shell if you update the reference to an absolute address, such as location within your home directory. e.g. `~/nix/dotnet.nix`

Example: multi-SDK installation with local workload installation enabled

By default, workload installation will fail on NixOS, as dotnet will attempt to save it to $DOTNET_ROOT, which is inside the read-only Nix store.

Please visit the forum for an example of a multi-SDK installation with workload changed to install to home directory.

See also

• NixOS GitHub dotnet docs
• dotnet in the nixpkgs manual
• buildDotnetModule references in nixpkgs
• The journey of packaging a .NET app on Nix
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_Framework - The old, windows-only version of .NET. Newer versions (ie. .NET Core) are multiplatform.
  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mono_(software) is the deprecated open source implementation of the DotNET compiler and runtime. It has transformed into .NET Core.
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/introduction