Table of Contents
Remote .NET Debugger Visual Studio Extension
Although it is possible to manually deploy, launch, and attach a debugger to a .NET 5+ application running on a remote device like the ComfilePi and jPC, Visual Studio does not have a built-in way to perform all three functions in a single motion.
To fill this void in Visual Studio, we have developed a Remote .NET Debugger Visual Studio extension that enables one to deploy, launch, and debug .NET applications on a remote device, all from within Visual Studio, at the click of a button, or an “F5” keystroke.
Download and Install
| Date | Release Notes | |
|---|---|---|
| ComfileTech.RemoteDotnetDebugger_v1.6.vsix | 2026-06-12 | Release Notes |
| ComfileTech.RemoteDotnetDebugger_v1.5.vsix | 2026-01-28 | Release Notes |
To install, simply close all instances of Visual Studio, and double-click on the .vsix file.
Requirements
Development PC
- Windows 10 or later, 64-bit
- Visual Studio 2022 or 2026
Target Device
- A running SSH daemon
- Installed .NET runtime or SDK
- Installed instance of
vsdbg. See Installing vsdbg for instructions.
SSH Authentication
The extension requires an SSH server to be running on the target Linux device. It supports both password and passwordless (key-based) authentication. Passwords can be stored in the Windows credential manager or entered on demand.
Installing vsdbg
The remote device must have the vsdbg utility installed.
Trixie and Bookworm
If using our ComfilePi Trixie and Bookworm OS, vsdbg is installed by default to /opt/Microsoft/vsdbg/vsdbg. If it is not installed it can be installed by running sudo apt install cpi-vsdbg.
Other OS Variants
Install vsdbg by following this procedure:
- Run
wget https://aka.ms/getvsdbgshto download the installation script. - Run
chmod +x getvsdbgshto make the script executable. - Run
sudo ./getvsdbgsh -v latest -l /opt/Microsoft/vsdbgto install vsdbg.
You can change the installation location to whatever you want, but you must remember the location when configuring the launch profile.
Configuration and Usage
After installing the extension and verifying SSH communication between the Windows development PC and the remote device all that's required is to add a new .NET Remote Debugger launch configuration profile to the project.
For most use cases, only the “Remote Machine”, “Remote User”, and “Path to vsdbg” are needed. “Path to vsdbg” must be the path to the vsdbg executable, not the installation folder. So, for example, if you installed vsdbg to /opt/Microsoft/vsdbg you will need to enter /opt/Microsoft/vsdbg/vsdbg for the path to the executable.
Troubleshooting
If you encounter problems, please check the “Remote .NET Debugger” output window pane.
