Running ASP.NET Zero on Mac
Download an ASP.NET CORE & Angular project with .NET Core framework as described in the getting started document. Do not check the "One solution" option when creating your project.
Pre-Requirements
Visual Studio for Mac: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/vs/mac/
.Net core SDK: https://www.microsoft.com/net/download/macos
pnpm 10 or newer (the project is pinned to
[email protected]): https://pnpm.io/installation#using-a-standalone-scriptNVM with Node.js 22.22.3+, 24.15.0+ or 26+: https://github.com/creationix/nvm
Angular-cli (https://cli.angular.io/)
Restoring Packages
In the terminal, go to base_folder/angular and run the pnpm install command:
pnpm install
Configuration & Build
The application is configured to work with SQL Server by default. If you want to use a different database provider, please check https://aspnetboilerplate.com/Pages/Documents/Entity-Framework-Core#other-database-integrations.
SQL Server database on Azure is used in this example. You can set your SQL Server database up in Azure Portal, and there got connection string like this, into appsettings.json:
"ConnectionStrings": {
"Default": "Server=tcp:research1server.database.windows.net,1433;Initial Catalog={my db name};Persist Security Info=False;User ID={my_id};Password={my password};MultipleActiveResultSets=False;Encrypt=True;TrustServerCertificate=False;Connection Timeout=30;"},
Note: You have to get your IPv4 address (e.g. https://www.whatismyip.com/) and in Azure Portal click on your database, then the "Set server firewall" button, then create a rule for your IP address (or range of addresses) and Save. Otherwise when you start-up you will see a Connection Refused error in the browser console.
Open the application in Visual Studio for Mac. If you are not going to work on Xamarin app, open the Web solution only, under base_folder/aspnet-core.
Set Web.Host project as Startup Project (right click on Web.Host project in Solution Explorer and you will see the option)
You need to get EF Core for dotnet.
Go here: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/miscellaneous/cli/dotnet and see Installing the Tools section.
Open the terminal in the EntityFrameworkCore project folder(eg Acme.PhoneBookDemo.EntityFrameworkCore, The ef cli commands in this article are all executed under this folder):
> dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design
> dotnet restore
Check your dotnet ef install:
> dotnet ef
And you should see a nice ASCII unicorn.
After that, run the command below to create your database:
> dotnet ef database update
Run the project in Visual Studio for Mac, it should take you to http://localhost:5000/swagger/.
Go to "base_folder/angular/src/assets/" and change port in remoteServiceBaseUrl from "22742" to "5000" in appconfig.json file before running the angular application.
Then go to base_folder/angular and:
> npm start
Then navigate in browser to http://localhost:4200/
There is no Package Manager Console in Visual Studio for Mac, so in Terminal you can Add-Migration:
> dotnet ef migrations add InitialCreate
Or Update-Database:
> dotnet ef database update
ASP.NET Zero Power Tools
ASP.NET Zero Power Tools is installed as a .NET global tool and opens a web-based UI on macOS as well.
Run the install command from the aspnet-core folder so the project-provided NuGet.Config is used:
dotnet tool install -g AspNetZero.PowerTools
Then launch Power Tools:
aspnetzero-powertools
For more information, see Power Tools Getting Started.
