selinux was enabled
I disabled it in /etc/selinux/config and rebooted the server
for good measure I rpm -e openfire and installed it again
now
selinux is disabled
error.log is empty
info.log says admin interface is listening at http://127.0.0.1:9090
ss -l | grep 90 says this is lies as nothing is listening at 9090
warn.log has an interesting message that could be a clue? It says that it cannot get the machine's hostname... But maybe this is normal before setup is completed?