--- title: "Building an ASP.NET Website Container with Windows Docker" description: "A complete walkthrough for switching Docker Desktop to Windows Containers and deploying an ASP.NET 4.8 site into a container on Windows." canonical_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/build-windows-aspnet-container" author: "Mark Ku" author_url: "https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku" site: "Mark Ku's Tech Notes" date_published: "2021-06-04 15:01:35 +0800" category: ".NET Core" tags: ["windows", "docker", "aspnet", "dotnet", "container", "devops"] language: "en" license: "CC BY 4.0" license_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" attribution: "when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original" --- # Building an ASP.NET Website Container with Windows Docker ## Install Windows Docker and Related Software 1. Use PowerShell to install the software Docker needs (run as Administrator) ``` function Install-Chocolatey { try { Invoke-Expression ((New-Object System.Net.WebClient).DownloadString('https://chocolatey.org/install.ps1')); } catch { $ErrorMessage = $_.Exception.Message; $FailedItem = $_.Exception.ItemName; Write-Host $ErrorMessage + $FailedItem; return $false; } return $true; } Write-Host "Install chocolatey" Install-Chocolatey; Write-Host "Install Docker Software" choco install docker-desktop -y choco install docker-compose -y choco install docker-kitematic -y ``` 2. After rebooting, open Docker Desktop and switch to Windows Containers. ![Docker Desktop menu highlighting Switch to Windows containers option](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/build-windows-aspnet-container/images/OqrKs3i.webp) ## Build the ASP.NET Website Container 1. Pull the ASP.NET Docker image ``` docker pull mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8 ``` 2. Build the ASP.NET container, mapping the container's port 80 to the host's port 888. ``` docker run -it -d --isolation=process -p 888:80 mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/framework/aspnet:4.8 # -i, --interactive (interactive mode) # -t, --tty (allocate a terminal) # -d, --detach (run in the background) # -- isolation=process (process isolation mode is required to use docker cp) ``` 3. Use docker ps to list running containers and find the container id. ![Windows PowerShell output showing running ASP.NET Docker container](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/build-windows-aspnet-container/images/8a6kQ0A.webp) 4. Switch to the Release ASP.NET application directory and use docker cp to copy the ASP.NET site into the container's web directory. ``` C:\WebSite> docker cp . 5d3aadf8028b:c:/inetpub/wwwroot ``` 5. The ASP.NET application is now running. ![Browser showing ASP.NET default welcome page on localhost](https://blog.markkulab.net/content/markku/posts/build-windows-aspnet-container/images/eV7LoLt.webp) Note 1: The command below opens a terminal inside the container so you can verify all files were copied in. ``` docker exec -it 5d3aadf8028b cmd ``` Note 2: Create a new image ``` docker commit 5d3aadf8028b newImage ``` --- ## About this article and its author Originally published on [Mark Ku's Tech Notes](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/post/build-windows-aspnet-container) License: [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) — when reusing or quoting, credit the author and link back to the original ### About the author **[Mark Ku](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/author/mark-ku)** — Software Solution Provider - 10+ years senior software engineer, now an AI Builder - Focused on large-platform architecture — North-American e-commerce, AI SaaS subscription billing - Combining AI Agents and automation to build evolvable product foundations ### Free tools built by the author All of these are free to use: - [Free PDF Sign Tool](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/pdf-sign): Online PDF sign tool — draw, type, or upload a signature, then drag, resize, and download. 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No sign-up, nothing uploaded to a server, and mermaid.live share links work as-is. - [React Intl Phone Number](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/react-intl-phone-number): react-intl-phone-number is an open-source React component: framework-agnostic and antd-free, with E.164 in/out, a searchable flag / country-code dropdown, configurable validation levels (strict / mobile-strict / loose), themeable CSS, and i18n — phone logic powered by google-libphonenumber. Lightweight and fully typed. Free and open source (MIT). - [Uptime Kuma Cluster](https://blog.markkulab.net/en/tools/uptime-kuma-cluster): Turn single-node Uptime Kuma into a highly available cluster: OpenResty + Lua smart load balancing, shared MariaDB state, health checks and automatic failover, plus cluster-management REST APIs. One Docker Compose command to start. 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