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VPS hosting

This hub links to the supported VPS/hosting guides and explains how cloud deployments work at a high level.

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Pick a provider

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How cloud setups work

  • The Gateway runs on the VPS and owns state + workspace.
  • You connect from your laptop/phone via the Control UI or Tailscale/SSH.
  • Treat the VPS as the source of truth and back up the state + workspace.
  • Secure default: keep the Gateway on loopback and access it via SSH tunnel or Tailscale Serve. If you bind to lan/tailnet, require gateway.auth.token or gateway.auth.password.
Remote access: Gateway remote
Platforms hub: Platforms

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Shared company agent on a VPS

This is a valid setup when the users are in one trust boundary (for example one company team), and the agent is business-only.
  • Keep it on a dedicated runtime (VPS/VM/container + dedicated OS user/accounts).
  • Do not sign that runtime into personal Apple/Google accounts or personal browser/password-manager profiles.
  • If users are adversarial to each other, split by gateway/host/OS user.
Security model details: Security

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Using nodes with a VPS

You can keep the Gateway in the cloud and pair nodes on your local devices (Mac/iOS/Android/headless). Nodes provide local screen/camera/canvas and system.run capabilities while the Gateway stays in the cloud. Docs: Nodes, Nodes CLI

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Startup tuning for small VMs and ARM hosts

If CLI commands feel slow on low-power VMs (or ARM hosts), enable Node’s module compile cache: 
grep -q 'NODE_COMPILE_CACHE=/var/tmp/openclaw-compile-cache' ~/.bashrc || cat >> ~/.bashrc <<'EOF'
export NODE_COMPILE_CACHE=/var/tmp/openclaw-compile-cache
mkdir -p /var/tmp/openclaw-compile-cache
export OPENCLAW_NO_RESPAWN=1
EOF
source ~/.bashrc
  • NODE_COMPILE_CACHE improves repeated command startup times.
  • OPENCLAW_NO_RESPAWN=1 avoids extra startup overhead from a self-respawn path.
  • First command run warms cache; subsequent runs are faster.
  • For Raspberry Pi specifics, see Raspberry Pi.

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systemd tuning checklist (optional)

For VM hosts using systemd, consider:
  • Add service env for stable startup path:
    • OPENCLAW_NO_RESPAWN=1
    • NODE_COMPILE_CACHE=/var/tmp/openclaw-compile-cache
  • Keep restart behavior explicit:
    • Restart=always
    • RestartSec=2
    • TimeoutStartSec=90
  • Prefer SSD-backed disks for state/cache paths to reduce random-I/O cold-start penalties.
Example: 
sudo systemctl edit openclaw

[Service]
Environment=OPENCLAW_NO_RESPAWN=1
Environment=NODE_COMPILE_CACHE=/var/tmp/openclaw-compile-cache
Restart=always
RestartSec=2
TimeoutStartSec=90
How Restart= policies help automated recovery: systemd can automate service recovery.