Mkosi Configure Scripts

[kolonelkrazy]

The mkosi configure script runs in the sandbox at a time in which there isn't CA Certs, networking, or DNS setup. I understand I could bootstrap these to the sandbox myself, but I'm trying to understand the design decision here and also wondering if I'm using the configure script wrong and could leverage another piece of mkosi functionality.

What I'm trying to achieve:

I would like to download a list of packages and sources externally (from security scanner latest approved list) and write a correct list of packages and sources to stdout or conf.d/. I do understand I could do this outside of mkosi and before it runs however I would like to use as much of the tool's functionality and flow before I go down the road of customization of the image build process.

My headscratcher moment:

mkosi.configure receive the mkosi configuration via stdin, and are allowed to change this configuration and pass it along to the next stages via stdout. My thought here is this should generally be used for things that exist outside the mkosi configuration folder, and outside the mkosi conf/build process in general, because otherwise, why not just put it in an already defined construct that mkosi can understand and access. Sync would be the next logical place but this is after the configurations have been parsed.

i.e. we are able to modify the mkosi configuration via, configure script but don't have access to anything to modify it with, and generally speaking if it's already in the /work/src folder it should be added to mkosi via other means.

General questions:

• What was configure scripts intended for?
• Where should my above use case be placed? (trying to avoid hacky/custom things for now)

Thoughts:
In my head it would make sense for a script (if not configure scripts) to be run outside the sandbox, in between step 2 and 3 of the Execution flow of the man page for preparation of artifacts, packages, etc, needed to prep for mkosi or dynamically configure conf files. Again totally understand you could do this beforehand but it's very powerful to be able to take in mkosi's configuration -do a bunch of magic based upon that to prepare- and then continue on.

[theCalcaholic]

Regarding your use case: That sounds like more of a job for the prepare script than configure. prepare can write to $PACKAGEDIR if the downloaded packages are compatible with the system packaging tool or to $ARTIFACTDIR if they are supposed to be installed by some other means that requires the system's environment. Or they can directly be installed to $BUILDROOT if that's possible.

Can't help much with your question regarding the configure scripts since I didn't use them yet.