Build breaking changes in Linux#

Key change#

Due to compatibility issues detected with Ubuntu 22.04, the use of dotnetcore2 has been removed. The embedded version of .NET associated to dotnetcore2 is old and has incompatibilities with the version of openssl that is installed by default in Ubuntu 22.04. This caused errors and conflicts with critical dependencies in the environment.

Workaround considered#

A temporary workaround was considered, which involved manually installing an older version of the libssl1.1 library. While this allowed the use of dotnetcore2, it is not recommended as a long-term solution for the following reasons:

Security risks: Installing an older version of libssl introduces vulnerabilities, as it may lack the latest security updates provided in the newer versions.
System instability: Manually forcing an older version of libssl can lead to dependency conflicts with other software packages that rely on newer versions of this library, potentially causing further compatibility issues in the system.
Maintenance overhead: Relying on deprecated or unsupported libraries increases the complexity of future upgrades and system maintenance, making the environment harder to manage in the long term.

Impact#

Users need to install .NET themselves. The installation process can be done following the official Microsoft documentation for .NET on Linux to ensure proper setup and compatibility. See Register Microsoft package repository and Install .NET.

Note

Starting with Ubuntu 22.04, .NET is available in the official Ubuntu repository. If you want to use the Microsoft package to install .NET, you can use the following approach to “demote” the Ubuntu packages so that the Microsoft packages take precedence.

1. Ensure the removal of any existing .NET installation. In Ubuntu, this can be done with the following command:

sudo apt remove dotnet* aspnetcore* netstandard*

2. Create a preference file in /etc/apt/preferences.d, for example microsoft-dotnet.pref, with the following content:

Package: dotnet* aspnet* netstandard*
Pin: origin "archive.ubuntu.com"
Pin-Priority: -10

Package: dotnet* aspnet* netstandard*
Pin: origin "security.ubuntu.com"
Pin-Priority: -10

Perform an update and install of the version you want, for example .NET 6.0 or 8.0

sudo apt update && sudo apt install -y dotnet-sdk-6.0