[Mono-list] linux, binfmts:Unexpected behavior

[Jonathan Pryor]

On Jan 2, 2013, at 1:02 PM, mabra at manfbraun.de wrote:
> I moved over a lot of utilities from windows to linux, but starting them using "mono ..." is a pain and luckily, I discovered "binfmts".

Presumably as suggested at:

	http://www.mono-project.com/Guide:Running_Mono_Applications#Registering_.exe_as_non-native_binaries_.28Linux_only.29

Please don't do that; please follow the Application Deployment Guidelines and use a shell script wrapper:

	http://www.mono-project.com/Guide:Running_Mono_Applications#Shell_Scripts
	http://www.mono-project.com/Guidelines:Application_Deployment

The reason being for increased compatibility across Unix platforms, and because (as you note), it doesn't work "properly":

> Running via "binfmts" looks strange:
> 
> myuser> WakeTheBox.exe hel
> AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory: /usr/sbin/

Why? I'm not entirely sure, but I would guess that binfmt works by having the kernel execute a "helper" program located in /usr/sbin, and the helper in turn is responsible for executing mono + the assembly, which may screw up mono's normal logic. The fact that it "screws things up" is documented at the above urls; _why_ it screws things up is not.

 - Jon