+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #2176555 +++

Description of problem:
image builder fails to make edge images that include npm

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
osbuild-65-1.el8.noarch
osbuild-composer-62-3.el8_7.x86_64
osbuild-65-1.el9.noarch
osbuild-composer-62.1-3.el9_1.x86_64

How reproducible:
Everytime

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Create blueprint with npm or nodejs (which pulls in npm)

name = "RhelEdge"
description = ""
version = "0.0.1"
modules = []
groups = []
distro = ""

[[packages]]
name = "npm"
version = "*"

2. composer-cli compose start RhelEdge edge-commit
3.

Actual results:
Stage org.osbuild.ostree.preptree
Output:
/usr/lib/tmpfiles.d/journal-nocow.conf:26: Failed to resolve specifier: uninitialized /etc detected, skipping
All rules containing unresolvable specifiers will be skipped.
Failed to open file "/sys/fs/selinux/checkreqprot": Read-only file system
ostree: machineid-compat: True
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/run/osbuild/bin/org.osbuild.ostree.preptree", line 172, in <module>
r = main(args["tree"], args["options"])
File "/run/osbuild/bin/org.osbuild.ostree.preptree", line 122, in main
os.rename(f"

/usr/etc")
FileExistsError: [Errno 17] File exists: '/run/osbuild/tree/etc' -> '/run/osbuild/tree/usr/etc'

Additional info:
This is also being discussed with HMS

https://issues.redhat.com/browse/HMS-1406
https://github.com/coreos/rpm-ostree/issues/2003#issuecomment-1453354982

— Additional comment from on 2023-03-13 15:42:09 UTC —

opening [2177776 – npm's /usr/etc/ softlink to /etc/ is preventing osbuild from creating Edge images.](https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2177776) to request if NPM can resolve this since npm is currently the only package with content in /usr/etc

— Additional comment from on 2023-03-15 12:48:11 UTC —

RHEL 8 npm is a dead stream and we can't switch streams at this time so we need to fix this for RHEL 8 or we need to document that it's not possible to build a RHEL 8 Edge image with nodejs