Post #353025

2026-02-21 15:26 UTC

I have tried to deploy #Snikket. Gave up after I didn't manage to convince it to not manage TLS certificates itself. I have tried to deploy #Prosody, Snikket's underlying project. Gave up after I didn't manage to configure it enough for it to be happy. I have tried to deploy #ejabberd. Gave up after I realized how underdocumented and confusing the configuration is, convinced I wouldn't be able to secure it enough. Is there really no good #XMPP server that would just work? I am annoyed.

Replies (4)

@latenightowl@social.linux.pizza 2026-02-21 15:28

I consider myself quite technically capable, but if I have not been able to get something reliably running in two hours, something is wrong. Nothing personal, maintainers.

Open ##353042
@menel@snikket.de 2026-02-21 15:30

@latenightowl@social.linux.pizza Snikket is the easiest and up in under an hour from scratch if you don't work against it. (yes it wants to manage everything itself, otherwise you need advanced docker skills) prosody only needs a virtualhost and the certs for that domain in its cert folder. Then it's opening some ports and a dns record. Then it should be running and working. Everything else can then be added from there. You can always ask and we help at xmpp:prosody@conference.prosody.im?join

Open ##3012821
@MediocreWightMan@indieweb.social 2026-02-21 15:35

@latenightowl@social.linux.pizza I wrote a blog post on setting up Prosody on Debian a while back. It’s for version 12 of Prosody and Debian Bookworm but it should still work. Version 13 of Prosody has some nice new features so I’ll get around to updating it at some point. Hopefully it helps you: https://blog.hetherington.uk/2024/12/setting-up-xmpp-prosody-on-debian-bookworm/

Open ##3012824
@mattj@floss.social 2026-02-21 17:47

@latenightowl@social.linux.pizza Out of curiosity, why were you trying to prevent Snikket from obtaining TLS certificates? It's typically a 5-minute setup, but it sounds like you have special requirements? If you could share the obstacles you had with Prosody I'm very interested. It sounds like it would be the better fit for you, so I'm curious what went wrong. (cont...)

Open ##3012826