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.NET SDK

This page dives into the nitty-gritty details on installing Rookout under various configurations.
If you encounter difficulties with deploying Rookout, this is the place to look.

Installation

The .NET SDK provides the ability to fetch debug data from a running application in real-time.

It can easily be installed as a NuGet package.

Supported Languages

The following languages are currently supported by the .NET SDK: C#, VB.NET, and F#.

If you use a language that is not mentioned above, please let us know at support@rookout.com.

Setup

Start the SDK within your application by adding the following to your main method or your application's entry point:

C#

VB.NET

F#

using Rook;
namespace Program
{
    class Program
    {
        static int Main(string[] args)
        {
            Rook.RookOptions options = new Rook.RookOptions() 
            {
                token = "[Your Rookout Token]",
                labels = new Dictionary<string, string> { { "env", "dev" } }
            };
            Rook.API.Start(options);
    
            // ...
        }
    }
}

Imports Rook

Module Program
    Sub Main(args As String())
        Dim opts = New RookOptions()
        opts.token = "[Your Rookout Token]"
        opts.labels = New Dictionary(Of String, String)()
        opts.labels.Add("env", "dev")
        Rook.API.Start(opts)
    
        //......
    
    End Sub
End Module

open System
open Rook
open System.Collections.Generic

[<EntryPoint>]
let main argv =
    let labels = new Dictionary<string, string>()
    labels.Add("env", "dev")
  
    let opt = Rook.RookOptions(token="[Your Rookout Token]", labels=labels)
    Rook.API.Start(opt)

    // .....

Check out the debug information, source information, and packaging-sources sections for recommendations on how to configure the build process.

SDK API

start

public static void Start(RookOptions opts)

The Start method is used to initialize the SDK in the background and accepts a RookOptions object with the following attributes:

Argument	Environment Variable	Default Value	Description
token	ROOKOUT_TOKEN	None	The Rookout token for your organization. Should be left empty if you are using a Rookout ETL Controller
labels	ROOKOUT_LABELS	{}	A dictionary of key:value labels for your application instances. Use k:v,k:v format for environment variables
git_commit	ROOKOUT_COMMIT	None	String that indicates your git commit or a branch name
git_origin	ROOKOUT_REMOTE_ORIGIN	None	String that indicates your git remote origin
host	ROOKOUT_CONTROLLER_HOST	None	If you are using a Rookout ETL Controller, this is the hostname for it
port	ROOKOUT_CONTROLLER_PORT	None	If you are using a Rookout ETL Controller, this is the port for it
proxy	ROOKOUT_PROXY	None	URL to proxy server
debug	ROOKOUT_DEBUG	False	Set to True to increase log level to debug

Test connectivity

To make sure the SDK was properly installed and test your configuration (environment variables only), download and run TestConnectivity:

• Windows .Net Framework
• .Net Core

Unix:

• Core 2.x: chmod +x ./rookout_test_core_2.x.sh && ./rookout_test_core_2.x.sh
• Core 3.x: chmod +x ./rookout_test_core_3.x.sh && ./rookout_test_core_3.x.sh

Windows: Simply run rookout_test_core_2.x.bat or rookout_test_core_3.x.bat respectively.

Project Requirements

Debug type

Rookout requires your application to be built and deployed with debug information in the form of .pdb files.

In your project’s settings, set the “debug type” to portable like so:

<DebugType>portable</DebugType>

While other “debug types” such as full and pdbonly may work (but are not recommended), the embedded type is not supported at all.

For further reading: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/devops/understanding-symbol-files-and-visual-studios-symbol-settings/

Optimizations

Disabling compiler optimizations <Optimize>false</Optimize> will further improve the debugging experience at a small cost to the application performance.

Multi-Project Solutions

To support multi-projects Solutions its recommended to add the following Directory.Build.props file to your Root folder:

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">

  <ItemGroup>
    <PackageReference Include="Rookout" Version="0.1.*" />
  </ItemGroup>

</Project>

Dynamic library loading

To be able to debug libraries loaded using AppDomain.Load(Byte[], Byte[]) make sure to load those binaries into Rookout using:

Rook.API.LoadAssembly(Assembly a, byte[] pdb, byte[] assembly)

Source information

To enable automatic source fetching, information about the source control must be specified.

Environment Variables or Start Parameters

Use the environment variables or start parameters as described above in the API section.

Git Folder

Rookout gets the source information from the .git folder if both of the following apply:

1. The .git folder is present at any of the parent directories of where the application is running (searching up the tree).
2. No environment variables or start parameters are set for source information.

MSBuildGitHash Package

Use the MSBuildGitHash package to embed the Git information to your application binary.

Note that for this method, the git binary is required to be installed on the build machine.

After installing the MSBuildGitHash NuGet package add the following line in the .csproj file:

    <MSBuildGitHashCommand>git config --get remote.origin.url %26%26 git rev-parse HEAD</MSBuildGitHashCommand>

Supported Versions

Implementation	Versions
.NET Framework	4.5, 4.6, 4.7, 4.8
.NET Core	2.1, 2.2, 3.0, 3.1
.NET	5.0, 6.0

IIS support

We currently support IIS 8.0 and above.

If the environment you are trying to debug is not mentioned in the list above, be sure to let us know: support@rookout.com

Serverless and PaaS deployments

Integrating with AWS Lambda

When integrating Rookout into an application running on AWS Lambda, you should explicitly flush the collected information once lambda execution concludes.
Rookout provides an easy to use wrapper - wrap your code with using (Rook.API.StartLambda(options)) as in the example below:

using Rook;

namespace LambdaExample
{
    public class Function
    {

        public string FunctionHandler(string input, ILambdaContext context)
        {
            Rook.RookOptions options = new Rook.RookOptions()
            {
                labels = new Dictionary<string, string> { { "env", "lambda" } }
            };
            using (Rook.API.StartLambda(options))
            {
                /// Your code
                return "Hello World";
            }
        }
    }
}

On .NET Core 3 or newer, you can also use await using instead of just using.

Note: Adding the Rookout SDK will slow down your Serverless cold-start times. Please make sure your timeout is no less than 20 seconds.

Refer to the SDK API for the available optional options

Packaging Sources

To make sure you are collecting data from the source line where you have set the breakpoint, include your source files within your library.

    <EmbedAllSources>true</EmbedAllSources>