Consider such configuration:
$ systemd-nspawn --read-only --timezone=copy --resolv-conf=copy-host \
--overlay="+/etc::/etc" <...>
Assuming one wants `/` to be read-only, DNS and `/etc/localtime` to
work. One way to do it is to create an overlay filesystem in `/etc/`.
However, systemd-nspawn tries to create `/etc/resolv.conf` and
`/etc/localtime` before mounting the custom paths, while `/` (and, by
extension, `/etc`) is read-only. Thus it fails to create those files.
Mounting custom paths before modifying anything in `/etc/` makes this
possible.
Full example:
```
$ debootstrap buster /var/lib/machines/t1 http://deb.debian.org/debian
$ systemd-nspawn --private-users=false --timezone=copy --resolv-conf=copy-host --read-only --tmpfs=/var --tmpfs=/run --overlay="+/etc::/etc" -D /var/lib/machines/t1 ping -c 1 example.com
Spawning container t1 on /var/lib/machines/t1.
Press ^] three times within 1s to kill container.
ping: example.com: Temporary failure in name resolution
Container t1 failed with error code 130.
```
With the patch:
```
$ sudo ./build/systemd-nspawn --private-users=false --timezone=copy --resolv-conf=copy-host --read-only --tmpfs=/var --tmpfs=/run --overlay="+/etc::/etc" -D /var/lib/machines/t1 ping -qc 1 example.com
Spawning container t1 on /var/lib/machines/t1.
Press ^] three times within 1s to kill container.
PING example.com (93.184.216.34) 56(84) bytes of data.
--- example.org ping statistics ---
1 packets transmitted, 1 received, 0% packet loss, time 0ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 110.912/110.912/110.912/0.000 ms
Container t1 exited successfully.
```