aha! lemme log in to mine and take a peak at the pub config file (within docker) ;)

{
  "connections": {
    "incoming": {
      "net": [
        {
          "scope": "public",
          "host": "0.0.0.0",
          "external": ["ssb-pub.picodevelopment.nl"],
          "transform": "shs",
          "port": 8008
        }
      ]
    },
    "outgoing": {
      "net": [
        {
          "transform": "shs"
        }
      ]
    }
  },
  "friends": {
    "hops": 2
  }
}

Seems to be my config, so that's all nice and dandy, no weird extra plugins used in the .ssb/node_modules folder.

What you can do... is to download docker on your local machine, then pull down https://github.com/ahdinosaur/ssb-pub follow the instructions on getting the image on your computer, then walk around in the image and see what it's doing (docker exec -it sbot bash after starting docker with ./create-sbot)