limitations of Apache2 mod_mono

Question

I run a small web application development shop. On a very limited basis, we do on occasion host some of our customers' apps and sites (I am not really set up for hosting, from a hardware stance). I am running 2 virtual servers with Windows Server 2008 R2. I thought about upgrading to Windows Server 2012, but the cost is kind of out there.

My thought was to just go Linux on the server side (most of our development environment is Linux already) But I have a few .NET applications running, including an MVC 4/EF 5 app.

Will I be able to run that on Apache with mod_mono? And secondly, how advanced can I go using mod_mono?

Answer 1

Mono provides a good list of what the current version can and can't do in comparison to .Net.

See http://www.mono-project.com/Compatibility

The current release version of Mono is 2.10.8. (Released December 19th, 2011)

The easiest way to describe what Mono currently supports is:
Everything in .NET 4.0 except WPF, WWF, and with limited WCF.

The offer some porting help in the form of a tool called MoMA:

The Mono Migration Analyzer (MoMA) tool helps you identify issues you may have when porting your .Net application to Mono. While Mono aims to be binary compatible with .Net, MoMA helps pinpoint platform specific calls (P/Invoke) and areas that are not yet supported by the Mono project.

Specifically for porting an ASP.Net MVC they also link out to an article you may find helpful:

Walkthrough: Porting Asp.Net MVC Website to Mono 2.6.1 and MySql on Linux Apache

As you may note in that, they mention MySQL and that's one thing you'll have to consider. If the .Net program(s) were written using MS SQL, and you don' tkeep an Ms SQl server around, they'll probably need some modifications made to have them work with another DB that's Linux-friendly (like MySQL).