how to use Powershell in runtime:6.0

[shengzhizhou]

Hi, I'm working on a new .NET 6 project and I need to call some powershell scripts in program. I notice runtime:6.0 doesn't have PowerShell built-in. I know sdk:6.0 has built-in PowerShell but the image size will be much larger as final image. What else can I do? How can I achieve that? Thanks for answers!

[mthalman]

You can grab it out of the sdk image like this:

Linux

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/runtime:6.0

COPY --from=mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0 /usr/share/powershell /usr/share/powershell
RUN ln -s /usr/share/powershell/pwsh /usr/bin/pwsh

Windows

FROM mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/runtime:6.0

COPY --from=mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0 [ "/Program Files/powershell", "/Program Files/powershell" ]
COPY --from=mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0 [ "/Program Files/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App", "/Program Files/dotnet/shared/Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App" ]

# In order to set system PATH, ContainerAdministrator must be used
USER ContainerAdministrator
RUN setx /M PATH "%PATH%;C:\Program Files\powershell"
USER ContainerUser

[mthalman]

Updated my original answer to include solutions for both Linux and Windows.

[rcdailey]

Even when I use dotnet/sdk:6.0-alpine, I cannot use pwsh (from bash, it says it cannot be found). Is the ln -s necessary in this case as well?

[mthalman]

Even when I use dotnet/sdk:6.0-alpine, I cannot use pwsh (from bash, it says it cannot be found). Is the ln -s necessary in this case as well?

No changes are necessary to use PowerShell in the SDK image. It's built into that image.

C:\> docker run --rm mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0-alpine pwsh
Unable to find image 'mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0-alpine' locally
6.0-alpine: Pulling from dotnet/sdk
530afca65e2e: Already exists
6207422b9602: Already exists
97f3adc41521: Already exists
5b011df4216c: Already exists
4f47c84b20eb: Already exists
c98422e87e60: Already exists
d45206748b5a: Already exists
Digest: sha256:e0575d5756d32a4679f0cdec32a6fac22cbd43352ffe8e52c1620a34d9386a9d
Status: Downloaded newer image for mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:6.0-alpine
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If you're having issues, I would suggest creating a different discussion post to troubleshoot. Please provide details in that case.