What were you trying to do that didn't work?

Installing nginx on a machine already deployed in image-mode.

More details about the root cause and possible solutions: https://bootc-dev.github.io/bootc/filesystem.html#var

What is the impact of this issue to you?

nginx does not start

Please provide the package NVR for which the bug is seen:

2:1.26.3-1.el10
or any recent nginx

How reproducible is this bug?:

always

Steps to reproduce

1. Run a machine in Image Mode. For example there are images used by testing-farm.

$ tmt run provision -h virtual --image http://images.osci.redhat.com/RHEL-10.1-image-mode-x86_64.qcow2 login

.... snip

bash-5.2# bootc status 
● Booted image: images.paas.redhat.com/testingfarm/rhel-bootc:10.1
        Digest: sha256:007ea1cbc9f4899e554f4c422ee6be40c6fc6a54a633fae6e3abf771820b2029 (amd64)
       Version: 10.1 (2025-05-15T21:45:31Z)
bash-5.2# 

2 .Prepare a Containerfile and build it

bash-5.2# cat Containerfile 
FROM images.paas.redhat.com/testingfarm/rhel-bootc:10.1
RUN dnf -y install nginx && dnf -y clean all
bash-5.2#
bash-5.2# podman build -t localhost/test .
STEP 1/2: FROM images.paas.redhat.com/testingfarm/rhel-bootc:10.1
Trying to pull images.paas.redhat.com/testingfarm/rhel-bootc:10.1...
Getting image source signatures
....Running transaction
  Preparing        :                                                        1/1 
  Running scriptlet: nginx-filesystem-2:1.26.3-1.el10.noarch                1/4 
  Installing       : nginx-filesystem-2:1.26.3-1.el10.noarch                1/4 
  Installing       : nginx-core-2:1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64                      2/4 
  Installing       : redhat-logos-httpd-100.0-4.el10.noarch                 3/4 
  Installing       : nginx-2:1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64                           4/4 
  Running scriptlet: nginx-2:1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64                           4/4 
Installed products updated.Installed:
  nginx-2:1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64                                                  
  nginx-core-2:1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64                                             
  nginx-filesystem-2:1.26.3-1.el10.noarch                                       
  redhat-logos-httpd-100.0-4.el10.noarch                                        Complete!
41 files removed
COMMIT localhost/test
--> 6fa68e051b89
Successfully tagged localhost/test:latest
6fa68e051b895763dcdd0c26346ed806cb3b1f9a89acf66d400b46795e92b336

3. Switch to the new version and reboot so the new image is appliedbash-5.2# bootc switch --transport containers-storage localhost/test
layers already present: 0; layers needed: 68 (1.7 GB)
Fetched layers: 1.55 GiB in 11 seconds (143.09 MiB/s)                                                                                         Deploying: done (2 seconds)                                                                                                               Queued for next boot: ostree-unverified-image:containers-storage:localhost/test
  Version: 10.1
  Digest: sha256:ae16d0deffa4b95ebe604f3feb1e48f9b318a52e93aa37cf00554a3c7696fc9d
bash-5.2# reboot 
{{...}}

4. Check the nginx package installation

$ tmt run --last login
...bash-5.2# bootc status
● Booted image: containers-storage:localhost/test
        Digest: sha256:ae16d0deffa4b95ebe604f3feb1e48f9b318a52e93aa37cf00554a3c7696fc9d (amd64)
       Version: 10.1 (2025-05-20T11:59:07Z)  Rollback image: images.paas.redhat.com/testingfarm/rhel-bootc:10.1
          Digest: sha256:007ea1cbc9f4899e554f4c422ee6be40c6fc6a54a633fae6e3abf771820b2029 (amd64)
         Version: 10.1 (2025-05-15T21:45:31Z)
bash-5.2# 
bash-5.2# rpm -qa nginx*
nginx-filesystem-1.26.3-1.el10.noarch
nginx-core-1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64
nginx-1.26.3-1.el10.x86_64
bash-5.2# for i in `rpm -ql nginx-filesystem`; do ls -d $i >/dev/null; done
bash-5.2# 
bash-5.2# for i in `rpm -ql nginx-core`; do ls -d $i >/dev/null; done
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/nginx': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/var/lib/nginx/tmp': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/var/log/nginx': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/var/log/nginx/access.log': No such file or directory
ls: cannot access '/var/log/nginx/error.log': No such file or directory
bash-5.2# 

Expected results

/var/lib/ dirs and files are created and the service can be started

Note

I have not tested but I expect that when the nginx package is created during the initial image creation all files and dirs are created as expected. The issue is present only when the existing image is updated.