Copy page

Guides

OpenClaw

This guide explains how to create and deploy your very own OpenClaw gateway on Unikraft Cloud. To run this example, follow these steps:

1. Install the CLI. Use the unikraft CLI. You need a BuildKit builder. The easiest way to get one is via Docker. Alternatively, you can also directly set up and use BuildKit, see the quick start.

2. Clone the examples repository and cd into the examples/openclaw directory:

   Code
   git clone https://github.com/unikraft-cloud/examples
   cd examples/openclaw/

Make sure to log into Unikraft Cloud and pick a metro close to you. This guide uses fra (Frankfurt, 🇩🇪):

Code
unikraft login

When done, you may create the OpenClaw Unikraft Cloud image and deploy an instance from it like so:

Code
unikraft build . --output <my-org>/openclaw:latest
unikraft run --metro fra \
  -m 4G \
  -p 18789:18789/tls \
  -p 2222:2222/tls \
  --scale-to-zero policy=on,cooldown-time=10000,stateful=true \
  -e PUBKEY="...." \
  --image <my-org>/openclaw:latest

Make sure to replace <my-org> with your username / org-name and to set your SSH public key as the PUBKEY environment variable above.

The output shows the instance address and other details:

Code
metro:        fra
name:         openclaw-8tosm
uuid:         e2a6183a-721b-4145-bfaf-37a5f859bbc1
state:        running
image:        <my-org>/openclaw
runtime:
  env:
    PUBKEY:   *
resources:
  memory:     4GiB
  vcpus:      1
service:
  uuid:       7ab20338-b04d-4869-947b-9433e21677b1
  name:       divine-flower-bxsaapup
  domains:
  - fqdn:     divine-flower-bxsaapup.fra.unikraft.app
networks:
- uuid:       2b0b120b-6ce5-4b19-ac4c-04ee8f11526e
  private-ip: 10.0.12.97
  mac:        12:b0:0a:00:0c:61
timestamps:
  created:    just now

In this case, the instance name is openclaw-8tosm and the address is divine-flower-bxsaapup.fra.unikraft.app. These will be different for each run.

You can now SSH into this instance and run the OpenClaw onboarding process.

In order to SSH, you need to set up a tunnel that handles the TLS connection to the Unikraft Cloud instance. This way, you have a non-TLS port that your SSH client can connect to:

Code
socat TCP-LISTEN:2222,reuseaddr,fork OPENSSL:divine-flower-bxsaapup.fra.unikraft.app:2222,verify=0

Then connect to the instance via SSH using:

Code
ssh -l root localhost -p 2222

You can list information about the instance by running:

Code
unikraft instances list

Code
METRO  NAME            STATE    IMAGE                     ARGS  MEMORY  VCPUS  FQDN                                     CREATED
fra    openclaw-8tosm  running  <my-org>/openclaw:latest        4GiB    1      divine-flower-bxsaapup.fra.unikraft.app  2 minutes ago

When done, you can remove the instance using:

Code
unikraft instances delete openclaw-8tosm

Learn more

Use the --help option for detailed information on using Unikraft Cloud:

Code
unikraft --help

OpenClaw Setup

Once you have SSH'd into your instance, you may run:

Code
openclaw onboard

This will set up your OpenClaw gateway on the instance. You will be asked to provide your LLM's API key here.

Once done, make note of your gateway.auth.token (henceforth referenced as <token>) from ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json

Code
cat ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json

Set gateway.controlUi.allowedOrigins in ~/.openclaw/openclaw.json:

Code
...
  "gateway": {
    ...
    "controlUi": {
      "allowedOrigins": [
        "https://proud-smoke-cjf0wro8.fra.unikraft.app:18789"
      ]
    },
    ...
  },
...

Replace the domain in the above URL with the address of your instance (noted earlier).

Run the gateway:

Code
openclaw gateway run --bind lan

You may now access the web dashboard using the following URL:

Code
https://<address>:18789?token=<token>

Where <address> is your above noted address and <token> is your above noted token.

For security reasons, you will have to manually approve your web "device" in order to start using the web dashboard. Create a new SSH connection to your OpenClaw instance:

Code
ssh -l root localhost -p 2222

First, find your device ID:

Code
openclaw devices list

Look under the Request column. Device IDs look like cabd915e-137a-4bc4-b640-d0e507684d65

Finally, approve your device with:

Code
openclaw devices approve <device-id>

Once this is done, refresh your OpenClaw web dashboard.

You now have full access to your very own OpenClaw deployment on Unikraft Cloud!