mono

Run a .NET assembly

$ mono [path/to/program.exe]

$ mono --debug [path/to/program.exe]

$ mono --runtime=v4.0 [path/to/program.exe]

$ mono --trace [path/to/program.exe]

$ mono --interpreter [path/to/program.exe]

$ mono --aot [path/to/assembly.dll]

mono [options] file [arguments...]

Mono is an open-source implementation of the ECMA Common Language Infrastructure (CLI) that executes .NET applications on Linux, macOS, and other platforms. It provides a runtime environment for C#, VB.NET, and other .NET languages.
The runtime loads assembly files (.exe or .dll) and compiles Common Intermediate Language (CIL) bytecode to native machine code using Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation. Ahead-of-Time (AOT) compilation is also supported for improved startup performance.

--debug[=_options_]

Enable debugging mode; options include casts, mdb-optimizations, gdb

Pre-compile CIL to native code; options: llvm, full, static, asmonly

Run exclusively on pre-generated AOT code without runtime JIT

Use interpreter instead of JIT compilation

Use LLVM backend for code generation when available

Select garbage collector: boehm or sgen

Enable/disable optimizations (inline, sse2, tailc, abcrem, etc.)

Trace method invocations with optional filtering

Load custom configuration file

Override runtime version selection (e.g., v4.0)

Configure remote debugging capabilities

Enable profiling with specified profiler

MONO_PATH environment variable should not be used by deployed applications as it breaks the assembly loader. AOT-generated code typically cannot be moved between computers due to CPU-specific optimizations. Some Windows-specific APIs may not be available or may behave differently.

Mono was started by Miguel de Icaza and Ximian in 2001 as an open-source implementation of the .NET Framework. It was later sponsored by Novell, Xamarin, and Microsoft. The project enabled cross-platform .NET development before Microsoft's official .NET Core release.

mcs(1), gacutil(1), dotnet(1)