Collabora Online (NS8) - Persistent Polish Language Pack / Spellcheck configuration

NethServer Version: NethServer 8
Module: Collabora
Hello everyone,

I am currently running NethServer 8 on Rocky Linux 9 and I’ve been trying to configure Polish spellchecking for the Collabora Online (CODE) module.

The issue: I understand that NS8 modules rely on immutable containers, so manually installing packages (collaboraoffice-dict-pl) or editing configuration files (coolwsd.xml) is not persistent, as all changes are wiped out upon container updates or restarts.

I have even attempted to manually copy the dictionary files into the container, but the application still does not recognize them. I suspect this is due to the systemplate / chroot isolation architecture of Collabora, which ignores files unless they are properly integrated into the template.

My question: What is the recommended best practice for adding custom dictionaries or configuration to the Collabora container in NS8 so that they persist through updates and container restarts? Is there a supported way to inject custom configurations, bind-mount dictionary paths, or use environment variables to achieve this without breaking the NS8 module structure?

Any guidance on the “NethServer way” to handle this would be highly appreciated.

Thanks!

The dictionaries are defined in the systemd service file, see ns8-collabora/imageroot/systemd/user/collabora.service at main · NethServer/ns8-collabora · GitHub

You could add an override and customize the used dictionaries. The change will be persistent and survive restarts/updates but it’s not included in the backup.

Here is an example: