dotnet command does not honor "globalPackagesFolder" in nuget.config file

[WenningQiu]

Describe the bug

I use globalPackagesFolder in my nuget.config file to specify a non-default package cache directory. The dotnet tool restore command successfully restores the tool package to the specified package cache directory; however, the attempt to run the tool fails due to not able to find the tool package.

To Reproduce

• Create nuget.config with the content below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <config>
    <add key="globalPackagesFolder" value="C:\Cache\.nuget-integration\packages" />
  </config>
</configuration>

• Create .config\dotnet-tools.json file with the content below:

{
  "version": 1,
  "isRoot": true,
  "tools": {
    "dotnet-rpm": {
      "version": "0.1.220",
      "commands": [
        "dotnet-rpm"
      ]
    }
  }
}

• Run dotnet tool restore command. Below is the output I get:

C:\work\git\infra>dotnet tool restore
Tool 'dotnet-rpm' (version '0.1.220') was restored. Available commands: dotnet-rpm

Restore was successful.

• Run dotnet rpm command. Below is the output I get:

C:\work\git\infra>dotnet rpm
Run "dotnet tool restore" to make the "dotnet-rpm" command available.

• Delete nuget.config and run dotnet tool restore (which restores the tool package to the default package cache directory), then dotnet rpm will go through. (It will crash due to missing critical arguments, but that is not the concern here.)

Further technical details

• Include the output of dotnet --info

C:\work\git\infra>dotnet --info
.NET SDK:
 Version:           8.0.100
 Commit:            57efcf1350
 Workload version:  8.0.100-manifests.8d38d0cc

Runtime Environment:
 OS Name:     Windows
 OS Version:  10.0.19044
 OS Platform: Windows
 RID:         win-x64
 Base Path:   C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\8.0.100\

.NET workloads installed:
 Workload version: 8.0.100-manifests.8d38d0cc
 [maui-windows]
   Installation Source: VS 17.8.34330.188
   Manifest Version:    8.0.3/8.0.100
   Manifest Path:       C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk-manifests\8.0.100\microsoft.net.sdk.maui\8.0.3\WorkloadManifest.json
   Install Type:              Msi

 [maccatalyst]
   Installation Source: VS 17.8.34330.188
   Manifest Version:    17.0.8478/8.0.100
   Manifest Path:       C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk-manifests\8.0.100\microsoft.net.sdk.maccatalyst\17.0.8478\WorkloadManifest.json
   Install Type:              Msi

 [ios]
   Installation Source: VS 17.8.34330.188
   Manifest Version:    17.0.8478/8.0.100
   Manifest Path:       C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk-manifests\8.0.100\microsoft.net.sdk.ios\17.0.8478\WorkloadManifest.json
   Install Type:              Msi

 [android]
   Installation Source: VS 17.8.34330.188
   Manifest Version:    34.0.43/8.0.100
   Manifest Path:       C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk-manifests\8.0.100\microsoft.net.sdk.android\34.0.43\WorkloadManifest.json
   Install Type:              Msi


Host:
  Version:      8.0.0
  Architecture: x64
  Commit:       5535e31a71

.NET SDKs installed:
  6.0.419 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]
  8.0.100 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk]

.NET runtimes installed:
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 3.1.32 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 5.0.17 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 6.0.25 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 6.0.26 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 6.0.27 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 7.0.14 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.AspNetCore.App 8.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.AspNetCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 6.0.26 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 6.0.27 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 7.0.14 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.NETCore.App 8.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.NETCore.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 3.1.32 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 5.0.17 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 6.0.25 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 6.0.27 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 7.0.14 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]
  Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App 8.0.0 [C:\Program Files\dotnet\shared\Microsoft.WindowsDesktop.App]

Other architectures found:
  x86   [C:\Program Files (x86)\dotnet]
    registered at [HKLM\SOFTWARE\dotnet\Setup\InstalledVersions\x86\InstallLocation]

Environment variables:
  Not set

global.json file:
  Not found

Learn more:
  https://aka.ms/dotnet/info

Download .NET:
  https://aka.ms/dotnet/download

• The IDE (VS / VS Code/ VS4Mac) you're running on, and its version
  VS2022. But the issue is not related to IDE.

[joecus1]

I can work on this!

[WenningQiu]

@joecus1 Thanks!

[nagilson]

@marcpopMSFT Assigning this one to @edvilme since the open source contributor hasn't had time to take a look.

[baronfel]

IIRC what we talked through this as a team we ended up on something like "tool install should use a 'relative' or 'logical' root for the global packages path instead of hard-coding it in the tool install manifests" , so that changes to the global packages path could be used without necessarily needing to reinstall tools.

[nagilson]

For the record:

A tool manifest is a JSON file that keeps a record of the tool saying its been installed somewhere. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/core/tools/local-tools-how-to-use#create-a-manifest-file

The packages path refers to a nuget package.

The Tool Install code is in the ToolInstallLocalCommand.cs.

The dotnet tool restore command is programmed to work correctly with this option in a
nuget.config file. That code is in
\sdk\src\Cli\dotnet\commands\dotnet-tool\restore\ToolRestoreCommand.cs

You can generate a nuget.config file by doing
dotnet new nuget.config