Contribution .NET applications support on Plesk for Linux - beta version is available!

[Anthony]

Hi, we are researching the ability to support .NET applications on Plesk for Linux.

We have some questions that we would like to clarify:

• How do you deploy your .NET applications on Plesk? Are you using f.e. Git to store your built projects? Or what is the most preferred way to deliver an app in Plesk in your case?
• Do you build your .NET application on a Plesk server, or upload already built projects?
• Which configurable options and features do you expect to see in the Plesk GUI?

We need your feedback. And, in case you are ready for a short interview with developers, ping me in DM.

 

[Anthony]

Hi, I'm glad to announce the beta version of the .NET Toolkit extension that allows you to host .NET applications on Plesk for Linux .NET Toolkit

The beta version of the extension installs the latest LTS version of the ASP.NET Core Runtime, configures Nginx and Passenger to serve the applications, and provides a simple UI to upload and configure your built application.

In the meantime, while development continues, we really need your feedback.

Feel free to provide your feedback to [email protected] or answer a few questions in the thread:
- How are usually you or your customers deploying a .NET application on a production server? Are you using the abilities to .NET Studio deploy options, rsync, Plesk File Manager, git, or whatever?
- Do you deploy a ready .NET application or build the application right on the production server?
- What common issues are faced during the hosting of .NET applications?

 

[Paul Hermans]

Hi Anthony,
Most of our customers are deploying using the Web Deploy functionality inside Visual Studio.
That is easy and fast, also good when updating an app because it only uploads the changed files.

Deployment via git would be nice but then Plesk needs to build the app first (create DLL file from source code).

Greetings Paul

 

[Anthony]

Deployment via git would be nice but then Plesk needs to build the app first (create DLL file from source code).

@Paul Hermans thank you for your feedback. It's very valuable.

We are using the abilities of Visual Studio too.
For now, we do not provide the ability to build a .NET app right in Plesk as it requires the installation .NET SDK (~400mb), and we do not see a clear demand for such functionality.

If I understood correctly, the Visual Studio deployment options fit your needs.

 

[Paul Hermans]

The installation requirement of the .NET SDK would not be a problem for us, being able to deploy via git is a very useful feature to have.

Everybody is using git these days, and committing to a production branch which automatically deploys the app opens the use of any IDE to develop and deploy the app to Plesk. Even committing via the CLI can work to deploy the app.

So I would definitly recommend to build that functionality.

 

[Anthony]

Hi, I'm glad to announce the production version of the .NET Toolkit extension https://www.plesk.com/extensions/dot-net/
In the latest 1.2 version, the following features have been added:

• Create a website running on ASP.NET Core with just a few clicks (Websites & Domains > Add Domain > .NET site).
• You can now create a website with a sample .NET application.
• The .NET 6 version is preinstalled during the extension's installation. But if customers require older .NET versions, you can install them in one-click right in Plesk.
• Added the ability to restart the application.

In the upcoming version, it is planned to support the .NET Toolkit on Plesk for Windows servers.

Thanks to everyone who provided feedback about this feature.
Please share your feedback, it's highly appreciated!

 

[Maarten]

Are you planning to add permission control via Service Plans? Otherwise, this is not something we would consider using on our servers.

 

[Anthony]

Are you planning to add permission control via Service Plans? Otherwise, this is not something we would consider using on our servers.

Hi, could you clarify why you need permission control via Service Plans?

 

[Maarten]

Hi, could you clarify why you need permission control via Service Plans?

For a couple of reasons:
- upselling: provide it as an add-on for existing customers
- allow it only for the more expensive hosting packages. Every asset you add to a hosting package will cost you support time. Even the cheapest hosting accounts can use this extension when there is no permission control. That's a lousy business plan; you never make an affordable income that way.

 

[Maarten]

Btw: the same goes for the Laravel extension. Great to have, and thank you for creating this! But no permission control and therefore not usable for us.

 

[Anthony]

Btw: the same goes for the Laravel extension. Great to have, and thank you for creating this! But no permission control and therefore not usable for us.

Thank you for sharing your feedback. We will consider this request.
I suppose these requirements are actual for any visible added management tool?
F.e. we have 5 toolkits in Plesk: WordPress, Joomla!, Node.js, Laravel, and .NET.

 

[Maarten]

Correct. A couple of extensions already allow permission control. You don't have to write extra code for the Laravel Toolkit and .NET Toolkit; you can use the same code for this. That's why it surprises me that the new extensions don't have this permission control by default.

 

[Matt2k]

• How do you deploy your .NET applications on Plesk? Are you using f.e. Git to store your built projects? Or what is the most preferred way to deliver an app in Plesk in your case?

We use either Plesk-hosted git repos in a push situation, or we use github/gitlab and webhooks and pull. Both work equally well.

• Do you build your .NET application on a Plesk server, or upload already built projects?

Automated compile and deploy through the "Additional deployment" steps

• Which configurable options and features do you expect to see in the Plesk GUI?

It was a little tricky to get local git repos working over HTTPS. It seemed like passenger was intercepting the HTTP calls instead, although I didn't dig into it very much. I managed to solve the issue by creating a totally unrelated domain that hosts the git repos, and then "dotnet deploy"s to the application's true path. I think pushing over SSH would have worked, but we disable password-based authentication and I didn't see any way to assign SSH keys to Plesk users.

I'd love for compilation to be a built in feature. I wouldn't expect Plesk to be a fully featured CI/CD service, but covering some basic use cases would go a long way. It's not really a big deal though.

Related: I'd also really love it if the "Additional deployment actions" logged their output somewhere. There's a lot of requests on the forum going back years for this feature.

All in all, with a little bit of effort I'm really happy with the results. We can git push to plesk and it builds & deploys automatically. it's really slick. I can't express how happy I am to finally have .NET core support in Plesk, it was one of those features I was waiting for forever. Thanks!

 

[Anthony]

Hi @Matt2k thanks for your answers!

I'd love for compilation to be a built in feature. I wouldn't expect Plesk to be a fully featured CI/CD service, but covering some basic use cases would go a long way. It's not really a big deal though.

Yep, we are evaluating demand for that feature now. Most likely, we can add an automation installation of .NET SDK on demand as it doesn't require by the most audience.

Related: I'd also really love it if the "Additional deployment actions" logged their output somewhere. There's a lot of requests on the forum going back years for this feature.

AFAIK, the results of execution are logged to the Plesk panel.log file. You can check it in /var/log/plesk/panel.log
We also will add the support of the panel.log view in our Log Browser shortly Mail Log Browser Extension

 

[gulshan212]

Well I also like doing work with .Net, really good to hear that .Net apps support on plesk for Linux.
Thanks

 

[Anthony]

Well I also like doing work with .Net, really good to hear that .Net apps support on plesk for Linux.
Thanks

Thank you, we will be happy to hear any feedback from you. Please let us know how it works for you and what can be improved.

 

[Maarten]

Hi, could you clarify why you need permission control via Service Plans?

Thanks, Anthony, for this change in the Plesk Obsidian 18.0.48 release, I appreciate it!

Added the “Access to Laravel Toolkit” and “Access to .Net Toolkit” permissions to service plans. The respective permissions allow customers to use Laravel Toolkit and .Net Toolkit for their websites.

 

[Wlaagewaard]

Hi

i have a question: is it also possible to back to a previous version of the .NET Toolkit? We have some issues and we want to rule out the version.

Wayne

 

[Anthony]

Hi

i have a question: is it also possible to back to a previous version of the .NET Toolkit? We have some issues and we want to rule out the version.

Wayne

@Wlaagewaard could you clarify what issues you faced? I think it's better to fix them than roll back to previous versions.

 

[blademsr]

@Anthony, I have some problems with the restart button, it doesn't seems to work properly.
I need to disable the application and then enable it again to apply the changes

As a suggestion, I have an automatic pipeline that compile the app and upload it using ftp, but I need to manualy restart the application to apply changes.
It would be great to have some automatic restart when the application startup file is updated for example.

But for the rest .NET Toolkit is a great feature and it works well. I love the logs integration, great job!