how to get all nuget dependencies for offline installation - nuget

Question

I two computers, one with internet connection and the other one without.
I want to install a Nuget package (Nuget.server) with all its dependencies on the offline computer.
Unfortunately it is not possible just to download the package itself and I have to download all dependencies manually and there are dozens of them.
How can I create a package on the computer with internet connection that contains all dependencies?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I just went through the pain of this and wanted to find a solution using only the NuGet CLI. Turns out it's pretty simple really:
> nuget.exe install <PACKAGENAME> -OutputDirectory <OUTPUTDIR>
The key is the -OutputDirectory switch which makes the CLI install the specified package into a directory that doesn't have a project file in it. Running this command will download the package and all of its dependencies into the output directory, with each package put into a separate sub-folder. You can then grab all of the .nupkg from the output directory and do whatever you need to do with them.
Update: As Igand points out in the comments, the -OutputDirectory switch is not actually required. If omitted nuget.exe will just download into the current folder. Still best to not download it into a folder with a project file in it (unless that is what you're after).

Answer 2

I had a similar need, so I created NuSave.
Cache a single NuGet package with dependencies
nusave cache package "Newtonsoft.Json#12.0.3" --targetFrameworks ".NETStandard#1.0,.NETStandard#1.3" --cacheDir "C:\path\to\my-local-feed"
Cache multiple NuGet packages from a .csproj file
nusave cache csproj "C:\path\to\project.csproj" --cacheDir "C:\path\to\my-local-feed"
Cache multiple NuGet packages from an .sln file
nusave cache sln "C:\path\to\solution.sln" --cacheDir "C:\path\to\my-local-feed"
Restore & build a solution offline using my local cache
cd C:\path\to\my-solution
dotnet restore --packages C:\path\to\my-local-feed
dotnet build --no-restore

Answer 3

On the computer with internet access the NuGet packages (.nupkg) should be in the local machine cache. On Windows this is in the directory similar to:
C:\Users\YourUsername\.nuget\packages
So you should be able to copy the .nupkg files from there to the computer without internet access. I would create a directory on that computer and setup a new package source pointing to that directory. Alternatively you could copy the .nupkg files to the local machine cache, just be aware there is a limit of 200 NuGet packages in the cache. Then you can create a package source pointing to the cache.

Answer 4

Use the dotnet restore command with the --packages flag, which will download the packages to a specified directory.
dotnet restore --packages <TargetDirectory> <ProjectPath>
Ref: dotnet restore
Specifies the directory for restored packages.

Answer 5

A little late to the discussion here but I just ran into the same issue. I work with a medium size software development shop that works offline. Many new NuGet packages have very large dependency trees. Trying to walk the tree manually and download all required packages was very cumbersome. In the end, I wrote the NuGet Dependency Downloader. With it you give a package ID, optionally a version, and choose if you want to allow pre-release packages. After you click "Start" it will pull down the listed package and any dependencies it needs to run. As an example, when I put in "Microsoft.AspNet.Mvc" and selected "pre-release", this tool brought down 158 packages for MVC 6.0 RC1. Hopefully this will help those working in an offline environment.
https://github.com/StuffOfInterest/NuGetDependencyDownloader

Answer 6

In your csproj file:
<Project Sdk="Microsoft.NET.Sdk">
<PropertyGroup>
<CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>true</CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies>
<PropertyGroup>
Or dotnet publish with all assemblies references.