RPMs using alternatives do not install properly in rpm-ostree container

[bsherman]

Describe the bug
rpm-ostree install of an RPM which uses the alternatives system (eg, netcat) fails when run in a Containerfile.

To Reproduce
Given a simple Containerfile:

FROM quay.io/fedora-ostree-desktops/silverblue:37.20230311.0.09be88fd
RUN rpm-ostree install netcat && ls -l /usr/bin/nc

Run build: podman build -f Containerfile --tag test-netcat

rpm-ostree install will log an informative message:
admindir /var/lib/alternatives invalid

And the example will fail with /usr/bin/nc not found.

Expected behavior

RPMs depending on alternatives should succeed when built via container rpm-ostree install.

OS version:

quay.io/fedora-ostree-desktops/silverblue:37.20230311.0.09be88fd

Additional context

As a workaround, one can mkdir -p /var/lib/alternatives in Containerfile before rpm-ostree install. However, then ostree container commit will fail due to existence of files in /var... a specific example:

Found file: "var/lib/alternatives/nc"

This error being similar to #413 , the further workaround is to rm the file.

[travier]

See:

• updates alternatives don't work  coreos/fedora-coreos-tracker#677
• config files for alternatives? fedora-sysv/chkconfig#9
• https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-coreos/alternatives/

Packages using alternative are not working well with rpm-ostree based systems right now.

[bsherman]

Thank you for the references.

[travier]

fedora-sysv/chkconfig#135 has been merged. I have not checked the implications for existing and new systems yet.

[travier]

This is now tracked in https://gitlab.com/fedora/bootc/tracker/-/issues/7 for the bootc side of things and https://gitlab.com/fedora/ostree/sig/-/issues/51 for the Atomic Desktops part.

[travier]

This will be fixed in F41. See updates in: https://gitlab.com/fedora/ostree/sig/-/issues/51. There is not automatic migration right now for existing systems but this should be reasonably easy to do and test. Documentation PRs welcomed.