I'm attempting to set up ejabberd so I can run my own Jabber server on my Ubuntu 9.10 Linode, to confer with friends who use Jabber / Google Talk. However I'm having some problems getting set up. I believe I've set it up correctly, as the server is running and I can see my configuration details in both /etc/ejabberd/ejabberd.cfg and the web interface. But my client is not connecting properly.

I am using iChat on Mac OS X to connect to the server. The strange thing is, I believe I had it all working last night, but for some reason this morning it was no longer working. After having some other issues, I did an apt-get purge ejabberd and started from scratch. Now whenever I try to connect, first it tells me that my login details will be sent insecurely (an error I did not get last night, when it seemed to connect without issue). If I hit Continue and opt to ignore it, it appears to connect, but any time I make a change, such as adding a buddy or renaming a group, the change appears to take for a moment and then disappears off the list again as though I was attempting to write to something read-only.

Additionally, when I attempt to add a new user via ejabberdctl register, it tells me:
Can't register user "user@domain.com" at node ejabberd@rassilon: not_allowed

I am running the command as root. Can anyone offer any tips for getting ejabberd up and running? Thanks!

I ended up creating a new Debian install as opposed to Ubuntu, and migrating everything over to that. For some reason it works just fine there. Thanks!

I see you've already got ejabberd running, but if you're looking for a simple, lightweight XMPP server, I'd recommend taking a look at Prosody. Although I don't know your specific needs, if all you're looking for is a personal XMPP server I couldn't recommend Prosody enough. It's easy to use, configure, is in active development, and is highly extensible.

The Linode Library has a guide on running Prosody on Debian and Ubuntu.

Thanks very much for the recommendation! I have no particular allegiance to ejabberd (aside from the fact that I've already got it set up), and I'm happy to experiment until I've got the best solution, so I'll definitely give Prosody a try.