Hmmm maybe that’s the one that tries to do everything on its own instead of using the stuff I’ve already set up. Had similar issues with eg.: Nextcloud.

I’ve been looking for an alternative “the actual XMPP service only, nothing else that can be sourced by the host” container setup but there doesn’t seem to be any.

You can, but honestly no idea how to handle stuff like the certs from that point on. Most other software on docker lets me eg.: just bind-mount the host’s directory with the certs I want to use - or just not even know about SSL in the first place and just let me reverse-proxy the access in (like, say, a simple static page web server).

But, like I said, the last times I tried to get into it, it tried its darnest to get in my way. If that’s changed since then, that’d be great.

While I like it conceptually, the two times I tried to install it I felt it was far too opinionated for me to get it to work correctly, like other software “bundles” of its kind that want to take control of the entire process of setting up ports, networking, storage, certificates etc…, instead of just hanging down from stuff that I have already prepared for it (like my own domain with my own cert).

Like, as a piece of software it’s something I’d absolutely use… if someone else sets everything up for me.

And this is why the trick is learning and focusing the technologies that stick at a “lower level” of the stack, and that have been battle-tested by years or even decades so it’s understood that they won’t just “go away”. Like eg.: learning C or Fortran instead of learning ${niche_language_of_year_20xx}. For the docker bracket for example the near equivalent would be hmmm I’d say (s)chroot.

Then again from here to around 5 years docker will the the schroot of its tech bracket.