Why does aspnet core start on port 80 from within Docker? - asp.net

Question

TL;DR: Why does an aspnet core app run on port 80 from within a Docker image, but 5000 outside a docker image.
Elaborate
I went through the aspnet core / docker tutorial found here:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/docker/building-net-docker-images
Half way through the page, I start the application with the following as prescribed:
dotnet run
Among other things, this prints this:
Now Listening on: http://localhost:5000
Great. That is what I expected. The next thing in the tutorial is to start the exact same application from within a Docker image.
docker build -t aspnetapp .
docker run -it --rm -p 5000:80 --name aspnetcore_sample aspnetapp
This results in
Now listening on: http://[::]:80
Wait. Wat? Why is the aspnet core app running on port 80? It was running on port 5000 when I ran it directly from the machine. There were no configuration file changes.
I suspect that it has something to do with the base docker images, but am not yet skilled enough in docker to track this down.

Answer 1

The microsoft/aspnetcore-build container builds on top of the
microsoft/aspnetcore container. The dockerhub page for that says:
A note on ports
This image sets the ASPNETCORE_URLS environment variable to http://+:80 which means that if you have not explicity set a URL in your application, via app.UseUrl in your Program.cs for example, then your application will be listening on port 80 inside the container.
So this is the container actively setting the port to 80. You can override it, if you want, by doing this in your Dockerfile:
ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:5000
Also, it is worth noting that because of the docker command you are using, you will still be able to access the application at http://localhost:5000 whether you are running the application directly or in a container.

Answer 2

without dockerfile you can set any port out of the docker container. (.NET Core 3.1, .NET 5, .NET 6, .NET 7+) with docker args
docker run -it --rm -p 5000:80 -p 5001:443 -e ASPNETCORE_HTTPS_PORT=https://+:5001
-e ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:5000 --name aspnetcore_sample aspnetapp
more details:
https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet-docker/blob/17c1eec582e84ba9cbea5641cd9cc13fe1a41c39/samples/run-aspnetcore-https-development.md?plain=1#L85
https://github.com/dotnet/dotnet-docker/blob/5926a01d44bd47b6202ba71e30f9faa08fad1aec/samples/run-in-sdk-container.md?plain=1#L109

Answer 3

If you are using .NET Core 2.2 or higher, then you should to use another image: mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/aspnet:2.2. In that case specifying ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:5000 does not help. You still can force app to listen to port 5000 by using UseUrls("http://*:5000") in Programs.cs file.

Answer 4

Some links in other answers are for older versions, or no longer exist. The below applies to v6.
All the mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/aspnet images are here. Suppose you are using the alpine version.
The aspnet image is based on the runtime image, as shown here.
The runtime image is based on the runtime-deps image, as shown here.
The runtime-deps image is based on the amd64/alpine image, as shown here (an older version, but with the same structure). And it sets ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS=http://+:80, as shown here, which means the container is listening on port 80.

Answer 5

Windows Networking Stack Limitation plays hard on Windows Docker Container.Reference Video
docker run -it --rm -p ${host_computer_port}:${container_port} --name ${container_name} ${image_name}
Example of the command:
docker run -it --rm -p 5000:8090 --name dockerwebapp9172020c dockerwebapp9172020
What is above command mean?
Your machine Port (5000) is mapped to container Port (8090). It does not mean that application running in container listening on PORT: 8090. See docker file below on how to map container port to application port.
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/aspnet:3.1-nanoserver-1903 AS base
WORKDIR /app
EXPOSE 8090
FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/core/sdk:3.1-nanoserver-1903 AS build
WORKDIR /src
COPY ["DockerWebApp/DockerWebApp.csproj", "DockerWebApp/"]
RUN dotnet restore "DockerWebApp/DockerWebApp.csproj"
COPY . .
WORKDIR "/src/DockerWebApp"
RUN dotnet build "DockerWebApp.csproj" -c Release -o /app/build
FROM build AS publish
RUN dotnet publish "DockerWebApp.csproj" -c Release -o /app/publish
FROM base AS final
WORKDIR /app
COPY --from=publish /app/publish .
ENV ASPNETCORE_URLS http://*:8090
ENTRYPOINT ["dotnet", "DockerWebApp.dll"]
Testing
Windows Networking Stack Limitation will not allow to run following command directly.
http://localhost:5000
Let's get on with first workaround.
Workaround-1 Directly hit Container. (Below command in PowerShell or Command Prompt)
ps c:/>docker inspect f31e8add55af
Find IP Address of a container from "NETWORKS" node at very end and run command in browser.
http://{container IP}:8090
Workaroud-2 From Windows Host
Let's find Your Machine IP address first.
c:\>ipconfig
Once you find your Machine IP, run following command.
http://{Your Machine IP}:5000
since 5000 is mapped to container port(8090) and asp.net core application is also listening to 8090 port within container.
Reference:Windows Containers and Docker: 101