also support --output pointing to a directory

[dirkmueller]

otherwise --output path/to/dir produces path/to/dir.raw. with this change it produces path/to/dir/image-$timestamp.raw.

[atanasdinov]

Trying out the example in the description I see the following:

atanas:/home/atanas/elemental-fork # ./build/elemental3 customize --type raw --local --config-dir examples/elemental/customize/linux-only/ --output path/to/dir
INFO[0000] Customizing image started                    
...
INFO[0010] Partitioning image 'path/to/dir'             
INFO[0020] Customize complete                           

atanas:/home/atanas/elemental-fork # tree path
path
└── to
    ├── dir
    └── dir.sha256

I believe this is fine. It will take the full path as a directory until the last one which would be considered the filename.

If I create a directory beforehand, and try to --output <existing-dir>, it will just fail because it is unexpected:

atanas:/home/atanas/elemental-fork # mkdir pp
atanas:/home/atanas/elemental-fork # ./build/elemental3 customize --type raw --local --config-dir examples/elemental/customize/linux-only/ --output pp
INFO[0000] Customizing image started                    
...                   
INFO[0010] Partitioning image 'pp'                      
ERRO[0010] Customizing image media failed               
ERRO[0010] Customizing installer media failed           
2025/12/12 11:39:07 failed partitioning disk 'pp' with systemd-repart: exit status 1

[dirkmueller]

If I create a directory beforehand, and try to --output , it will just fail because it is unexpected:

you're testing without the PR, with the PR the output is this:

$ sudo ./build/elemental3 customize --type raw --local --config-dir examples/elemental/customize/linux-only/ --output pp
[sudo] Passwort für root: 
INFO[0000] Customizing image at pp/image-2025-12-12T09-51-03.raw 
INFO[0000] Configuring image components                 
INFO[0000] Custom configuration scripts not provided, skipping. 
INFO[0000] Kubernetes is not enabled, skipping configuration 
INFO[0000] Pulling extension elemental3ctl from registry.suse.de/devel/unifiedcore/releases/0.5/containers/suse/uc/elemental3ctl:0.5_12.2-2.26... 
INFO[0000] Translating butane configuration to Ignition syntax 
INFO[0000] Extracting ISO from container image registry.suse.de/devel/unifiedcore/releases/0.5/containers/uc-base-kernel-default-iso:16.0-14.14 
INFO[0015] Loading ISO install description              
INFO[0015] Parsing media type                           
INFO[0015] Customizing image media                      
INFO[0015] Starting rsync...                            
INFO[0015] Finished syncing                             
INFO[0017] Starting rsync...                            
INFO[0017] Finished syncing                             
INFO[0017] Partitioning image 'pp/image-2025-12-12T09-51-03.raw' 
INFO[0028] Customize complete      

[atanasdinov]

I was referring to this being the entry point:

otherwise --output path/to/dir produces path/to/dir.raw

[dirkmueller]

I was referring to this being the entry point:

otherwise --output path/to/dir produces path/to/dir.raw

True, I wrote this description and test and code when f13b894 was not yet merged in the tree. To reproduce, you would have to revert to a state earlier than that. with the change above the behavior changed slightly. I still think we shouldn't error out on --output pointing to an existing directory and with this change it will just create an image wihtin the directory, which is a sensible behavior imho.

It is more of a new feature then though.