.NET Core dependencies and requirements

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This article details which operating systems and CPU architecture are supported by .NET Core.

Supported operating systems

The following Windows versions are supported with .NET Core 3.1:

Note

A + symbol represents the minimum version.

OS Version Architectures
Windows Client 7 SP1+, 8.1 x64, x86
Windows 10 Client Version 1607+ x64, x86
Windows Server 2012 R2+ x64, x86
Nano Server Version 1803+ x64, ARM32

For more information about .NET Core 3.1 supported operating systems, distributions, and lifecycle policy, see .NET Core 3.1 Supported OS Versions.

Windows 7 / Vista / 8.1 / Server 2008 R2 / Server 2012 R2

Additional dependencies are required if you're installing the .NET SDK or runtime on the following Windows versions:

  • Windows 7 SP1
  • Windows Vista SP 2
  • Windows 8.1
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2012 R2

Install the following:

The requirements above are also required if you come across one of the following errors:

The program can't start because api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

- or -

The program can't start because api-ms-win-cor-timezone-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem.

- or -

The library hostfxr.dll was found, but loading it from C:\<path_to_app>\hostfxr.dll failed.

.NET Core 3.1 treats Linux as a single operating system. There's a single Linux build (per chip architecture) for supported Linux distributions.

.NET Core 3.1 is supported on the following Linux distributions/versions:

Note

A + symbol represents the minimum version.

OS Version Architectures
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6, 7, 8 x64
CentOS 7+ x64
Oracle Linux 7+ x64
Fedora 30+ x64
Debian 9+ x64, ARM32, ARM64
Ubuntu 16.04+ x64, ARM32, ARM64
Linux Mint 18+ x64
openSUSE 15+ x64
SUSE Enterprise Linux (SLES) 12 SP2+ x64
Alpine Linux 3.10+ x64, ARM64

For more information about .NET Core 3.1 supported operating systems, distributions, and lifecycle policy, see .NET Core 3.1 Supported OS Versions.

For more information about how to install .NET Core 3.1 on ARM64 (kernel 4.14+), see Installing .NET Core 3.0 on Linux ARM64.

Important

ARM64 support requires Linux kernel 4.14 or higher. Some linux distributions satisfy this requirement while others don't. For example, Ubuntu 18.04 is supported but Ubuntu 16.04 doesn't.

Linux distribution dependencies

Based on your linux distribution, you may need to install additional dependencies.

Important

The exact versions and names may vary slightly on your Linux distribution of choice.

Ubuntu

Ubuntu distributions require the following libraries to be installed:

  • liblttng-ust0
  • libcurl3 (for 14.x and 16.x)
  • libcurl4 (for 18.x)
  • libssl1.0.0
  • libkrb5-3
  • zlib1g
  • libicu52 (for 14.x)
  • libicu55 (for 16.x)
  • libicu57 (for 17.x)
  • libicu60 (for 18.x)

For .NET Core apps that use the System.Drawing.Common assembly, you also need the following dependency:

  • libgdiplus (version 6.0.1 or later)

Warning

Most versions of Ubuntu include an earlier version of libgdiplus. You can install a recent version of libgdiplus by adding the Mono repository to your system. For more information, see https://www.mono-project.com/download/stable/.

CentOS and Fedora

CentOS distributions require the following libraries installed:

  • lttng-ust
  • libcurl
  • openssl-libs
  • krb5-libs
  • libicu
  • zlib

Fedora users: If your OpenSSL's version >= 1.1, you'll need to install compat-openssl10.

For .NET Core 2.0, the following dependencies are also required:

  • libunwind
  • libuuid

For more information about the dependencies, see Self-contained Linux apps.

For .NET Core apps that use the System.Drawing.Common assembly, you'll also need the following dependency:

  • libgdiplus (version 6.0.1 or later)

Warning

Most versions of CentOS and Fedora include an earlier version of libgdiplus. You can install a recent version of libgdiplus by adding the Mono repository to your system. For more information, see https://www.mono-project.com/download/stable/.

Alpine

Alpine distributions require the following libraries to be installed:

  • icu-libs (this is not needed if globalization is disabled)
  • krb5-libs
  • libcurl
  • libintl
  • libssl1.1 (for Alpine 3.9 or later) or libssl1.0 (for older ones)
  • libstdc++
  • lttng-ust
  • numactl (optional, useful only for devices with NUMA enabled)
  • zlib

For .NET Core apps that use the System.Drawing.Common assembly, you also need the following dependency:

  • libgdiplus (it is available only in the edge/testing repository)

.NET Core is supported on the following macOS releases:

Note

A + symbol represents the minimum version.

.NET Core Version macOS Architectures
3.1 High Sierra (10.13+) x64 More information
3.0 High Sierra (10.13+) x64 More information
2.2 Sierra (10.12+) x64 More information
2.1 Sierra (10.12+) x64 More information

Beginning with macOS Catalina (version 10.15), all software built after June 1, 2019 that is distributed with Developer ID, must be notarized. This requirement applies to the .NET Core runtime, .NET Core SDK, and software created with .NET Core.

The installers for .NET Core (both runtime and SDK) versions 3.1, 3.0, and 2.1, have been notarized since February 18, 2020. Prior released versions aren't notarized. If you run a non-notarized app, you'll see an error similar to the following image:

macOS Catalina notarization alert

For more information about how enforced-notarization affects .NET Core (and your .NET Core apps), see Working with macOS Catalina Notarization.

libgdiplus

.NET Core applications that use the System.Drawing.Common assembly require libgdiplus to be installed.

An easy way to obtain libgdiplus is by using the Homebrew ("brew") package manager for macOS. After installing brew, install libgdiplus by executing the following commands at a Terminal (command) prompt:

brew update
brew install mono-libgdiplus

Next steps