Hosting .Net Core on Linux(Ubuntu) Amazon AWS Lightsail with MySQL - A Complete Guide

• Signup/Login to Lightsail then click on Create Instance. 
  
• You can set up a free trial instance for 30 days. or select an instance of your choice. Give a name to your instance. The screen also has an option to upload your own SSH key. I'm going to leave for default one which is generated by AWS.
• Click on Create Instance. Your Lightsail ubuntu instance will be ready in a minute or two.
• Create Static IP: Lightsail instance comes with free static/public IP address. Attaching the server with static IP helps in DNS configuration. Also, using that IP  adress the website can be directly accessed from anywhere.
• Go to the Network tab and click on Create Static IP
• Select the location same as Linux box
• Attach the instance created above
• Give a name to the static IP
• Click Create

• Navigate to the Database tab then click on Create Database
• Select the AWS region same as one selected while creating the Ubuntu box.
• Select the My SQL Version
• Provide username and password for DB instance or leave it to the default username dbmaster and lightsail auto generates a strong password for you.
• Give a name to MySqlL instance then click Create Database.

As our AWS instance is ready, lets setup .net core project to use MySQL database

• First, open MySql workbench in your local system.
  If you don't have MySql, download and install it from here
  
• In MySql, workbench window click on create a new connection (+ icon), then give lightsail MySql database instance credentials
• Once the connection is created, open your database instance and create a new schema (database)
• Open .net core project either in Visual Studio or VS Code and install MySql NuGet package.
  From visual studio package manager console, run

  Install-Package MySql.Data.EntityFrameworkCore

  Install-Package MySql.Data.EntityFrameworkCore.Design

  If you are using vs code run below command from the .Net CLI
  

  dotnet add package MySql.Data.EntityFrameworkCore

  dotnet add package MySql.Data.EntityFrameworkCore.Design

• Open appsettings.json file and enter the connection string

   "ConnectionStrings": {
  	"dbconnection": "server=<aws_server_name>;port=3306;database=<database>;User=<db_user>;Password=<my_sql_password>"
    }

• Open Startup.cs, in the configure section, enter below code

   public void ConfigureServices(IServiceCollection services)
   { 
     services.AddDbContext<ApplicationDbContext>(options =>
             options.UseMySQL(Configuration.GetConnectionString("dbconnection")));
   } 

• With the above setup in place, the project is now connected to MySQL. Let's run the migration commands to migrate user tables.
• At the time of writing this article, there are some issues with the MySQL NuGet package. I've mentioned the issues at the end of this article, if necessary check it out
• Run the migration command to update the database.
  (Note: I've not created a new migration as .net core default project template comes with migration files for user tables. Below command is only for updating the existing migration)

  Update-Database //from visual studio
  dotnet ef database update //from .net cli

• Create a publishing profile with the following options and publish code to the local directory
• Target Machine: Linux-x64
• Deployment Mode: Self-Contained

As we have published the code to the local folder in the previous section. Next step is to set up the Nginx and then transfer the code to Ubuntu Nginx hosting directory.

• Login to the Lightsail website from browser and open Ubuntu terminal
• Install .Net Core runtime using this link. Step to install for deferent Linux distros are also given the same link.
  
• Install Nginx -

  sudo apt update
  sudo apt install nginx

• Start webserver

  sudo service nginx start

• Verify that Nginx running by browsing the public IP address created earlier from your local system.
  You should see the default Nginx screen saying "Welcome to Nginx" 
• Create folder for project in Nginx directory /var/www/html/ directory

  -sudo mkdir /var/www/html/<project_name>

• Give write permission to non-root user - Ubuntu
  This is needed to access your file using FTP clients

  cd /var/www/html/<project_name>
  sudo chown ubuntu <project_name>

• Copy the published project file to Nginx folder using any FTP client like WinSCP
• Nginx Configuration: Nginx works as a reverse proxy server with Kestrel.
  Edit the Nginx config file

sudo nano /etc/nginx/sites-available/default

• Below is the config file example. 

  server
  {   
      listen 80 default_server; 
      return 444;   
  }
  server { 
      listen       80;
      #Once site starts working with IP, replace it with your domain name.
      server_name  <Static_IP>;
  
      location / { 
          proxy_pass         http://localhost:5000; 
          proxy_http_version 1.1; 
          proxy_set_header   Upgrade $http_upgrade; 
          proxy_set_header   Connection keep-alive; 
          proxy_set_header   Host $host; 
          proxy_cache_bypass $http_upgrade; 
          proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for; 
          proxy_set_header   X-Forwarded-Proto $scheme; 
      } 
   } 
  

• Verify the syntax of the configuration files.

sudo nginx -t

• Our Nginx is ready, Configure Kestrel server to run as service.
  Create a service definition file using below command

  sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/<kestrel_project_name>.service

• Put below code in the service definition file. Change project_name and assembly_name.
  

  [Unit] 
  
  Description=Example .NET Core Web App running on Ubuntu 
  
  [Service] 
  
  WorkingDirectory=/var/www/ 
  
  ExecStart=/usr/bin/dotnet /var/www/<project_name>/<app_assembly>.dll 
  
  Restart=always 
  
  # Restart service after 10 seconds if the dotnet service crashes: 
  
  RestartSec=10 
  
  KillSignal=SIGINT 
  
  SyslogIdentifier=dotnet-example 
  
  User=www-data 
  
  Environment=ASPNETCORE_ENVIRONMENT=Production 
  
  Environment=DOTNET_PRINT_TELEMETRY_MESSAGE=false 
  
  [Install] 
  
  WantedBy=multi-user.target 

  
  
• Save the file and Enable the service

  sudo systemctl enable <kestrel_project_name>.service 
  

• Restart the service

  sudo systemctl restart <kestrel_project_name>.service

With this configuration, the .net core website should be up and running. You should be able to access it using the Lightsail Public IP address. 

Next step is to -

• Remove IP address from Nginx config file and replace with your domain name.
• Configure DSN recording using the public IP
• Generate and Add SSL certificate