Table of Contents

Platform Compatibility

NATS.Net targets multiple .NET platforms to provide broad compatibility:

  • netstandard2.0 - .NET Framework 4.6.1+, .NET Core 2.0+, Mono, Xamarin, Unity
  • netstandard2.1 - .NET Core 3.0+
  • net6.0 - .NET 6
  • net8.0 - .NET 8

While the API surface is designed to be consistent across all target frameworks, there are some intentional differences due to platform capabilities. This page documents these differences.

TLS Configuration

SslClientAuthenticationOptions

The NatsTlsOpts.ConfigureClientAuthentication property allows you to configure TLS client authentication options.

Target Framework Type
netstandard2.0 NATS.Client.Core.SslClientAuthenticationOptions (polyfill)
netstandard2.1, net6.0, net8.0 System.Net.Security.SslClientAuthenticationOptions (BCL)

On netstandard2.0, the library provides a polyfill type NATS.Client.Core.SslClientAuthenticationOptions because the BCL type doesn't exist in that target framework. The polyfill provides a subset of the properties available in the BCL type:

  • TargetHost
  • EnabledSslProtocols
  • ClientCertificates
  • CertificateRevocationCheckMode
  • RemoteCertificateValidationCallback
  • LocalCertificateSelectionCallback

If you need the full SslClientAuthenticationOptions functionality, consider targeting netstandard2.1 or later.

Dependency Injection

Keyed Services

The AddNats extension method has different signatures depending on the target framework:

netstandard2.0, netstandard2.1, net6.0:

public static IServiceCollection AddNats(
    this IServiceCollection services,
    int poolSize = 1,
    Func<NatsOpts, NatsOpts>? configureOpts = null,
    Action<NatsConnection>? configureConnection = null)

net8.0:

public static IServiceCollection AddNats(
    this IServiceCollection services,
    int poolSize = 1,
    Func<NatsOpts, NatsOpts>? configureOpts = null,
    Action<NatsConnection>? configureConnection = null,
    object? key = null)  // Additional parameter for keyed services

Keyed dependency injection services were introduced in .NET 8. The key parameter allows you to register multiple NATS connections with different keys:

// .NET 8+ only
services.AddNats(key: "primary", configureOpts: opts => opts with { Url = "nats://primary:4222" });
services.AddNats(key: "secondary", configureOpts: opts => opts with { Url = "nats://secondary:4222" });

// Inject with [FromKeyedServices("primary")]
public class MyService([FromKeyedServices("primary")] INatsConnection primaryNats) { }

API Compatibility Checking

The repository includes an API compatibility check that runs in CI to ensure APIs remain consistent across target frameworks. Known intentional differences are documented in apicompat.suppression.xml at the repository root.

To run the compatibility check locally:

./scripts/apicompat.sh --build

What's Next

  • Serialization is the process of converting an object into a format that can be stored or transmitted.
  • Security is an important aspect of any distributed system. NATS provides a number of security features to help you secure your applications.
  • AOT Deployment is a way to deploy your applications as native platform executables.
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