Right, of course you can use password auth with sftp, but 1) there was no docker at the time (as in the linked repo), 2) lxc itself was very new at the time, in

Right, of course you can use password auth with sftp, but 1) there was no docker at the time (as in the linked repo), 2) lxc itself was very new at the time, in fact, and 3) that project appears to create system users (in the container) which was one thing I was trying to avoid doing, without adding undue complexity (LDAP or whatever). My solution was mature at the time, relied entirely on our existing auth system so there was no need to keep accounts in sync or manage them separately, and didn't cause any complications with permissions for which directories an account could access (if our normal auth system said a user could access ftps for a given project, then they could, and that was it—no messing with Unix permissions and groups or, more likely, Linux ACL-based permissions, and keeping those in sync with the settings on the site)