Table of Contents

Native AOT

All four SshSharp packages are trimming- and Native AOT-compatible (IsAotCompatible): no reflection, no runtime code generation, and no trim or AOT warnings. An application that uses them can be published as a single self-contained native executable, with fast startup and no .NET runtime to install.

When to use

  • Command-line tools that should start instantly and ship as one file.
  • Small containers and constrained hosts.

Publish

<PropertyGroup>
  <OutputType>Exe</OutputType>
  <TargetFramework>net10.0</TargetFramework>
  <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>
  <InvariantGlobalization>true</InvariantGlobalization> <!-- optional: smaller, if you need no culture data -->
</PropertyGroup>

dotnet publish -c Release -r linux-x64

The code needs nothing AOT-specific:

// Program.cs of an app published with <PublishAot>true</PublishAot>: nothing AOT-specific in the code.
using var stop = new CancellationTokenSource(TimeSpan.FromMinutes(1));
await using var client = await SshClient.ConnectAsync(args[0], cancellationToken: stop.Token);
var result = await client.RunCommandAsync(args[1], stop.Token);
Console.Write(result.StandardOutputText);
return result.ExitStatus ?? 255;

How it is verified

CI publishes a smoke-test program (tests/SshSharp.AotSmoke) with Native AOT, with trim and AOT warnings as errors, and runs it against a real OpenSSH server: configuration parsing, connecting, and the main features, all from the AOT-compiled binary.

Notes and pitfalls

  • Your own code must be AOT-compatible too: System.Text.Json with source generation, no Assembly.Load, and so on. The publish warnings tell you where.
  • Native AOT needs the platform toolchain (on Windows, the C++ build tools; on Linux, clang). Cross-OS publishing is not supported by .NET; build on the target OS (or in a container of it).
  • Size. The trimmer removes code you do not use; SCP, for example, is not carried by an application that never calls it.

See also

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