Running a Microsoft .NET Docker image in C#

Docker has become an essential tool in modern software development, providing an efficient and portable way to package and distribute applications. Microsoft .NET developers can take advantage of Docker to simplify their development workflow and improve the consistency and reliability of their applications. This article will explore how to run a Microsoft .NET Docker image from code in C#.

Photo by Christopher Gower on Unsplash

Prerequisites

Before getting started, you will need to have the following software installed on your machine:

• Docker Desktop
• Visual Studio or .NET Core SDK

You will also need a basic understanding of Docker concepts, such as images and containers.

Getting Started

We will create a new C# console application in Visual Studio. Open Visual Studio and select File > New > Project. Choose Console App (.NET Core) as the project type and give it a name, such as DockerCSharp.

Next, open the Program.cs file and replace the existing code with the following:

using Docker.DotNet;
using Docker.DotNet.Models;
using System;
using System.IO;
using System.Threading.Tasks;

namespace DockerCSharp
{
    class Program
    {
        static async Task Main(string[] args)
        {
            // Define Docker API client configuration
            var dockerConfig = new DockerClientConfiguration(new Uri("npipe://./pipe/docker_engine"));

            // Create Docker API client
            var dockerClient = dockerConfig.CreateClient();

            // Define container configuration
            var containerConfig = new Config()
            {
                Image = "mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0",
                Cmd = new[] { "dotnet", "new", "console", "-o", "/app", "--no-https" },
                HostConfig = new HostConfig()
                {
                    AutoRemove = true,
                    Binds = new[] { $"{Directory.GetCurrentDirectory()}/app:/app" }
                }
            };

            // Create container
            var containerCreateResponse = await dockerClient.Containers.CreateContainerAsync(containerConfig);
            var containerId = containerCreateResponse.ID;

            // Start container
            await…