Hetzner

Run a persistent OpenClaw Gateway on a Hetzner VPS using Docker, with durable state, baked-in binaries, and safe restart behavior.

Hetzner pricing changes; pick the smallest Debian/Ubuntu VPS that fits and scale up if you hit OOMs.

The Gateway can be accessed via SSH port forwarding from your laptop, or via direct port exposure if you manage firewalling and tokens yourself.

Security model reminder:

• Company-shared agents are fine when everyone is in the same trust boundary and the runtime is business-only.
• Keep strict separation: dedicated VPS/runtime + dedicated accounts; no personal Apple/Google/browser/password-manager profiles on that host.
• If users are adversarial to each other, split by gateway/host/OS user.

See Security and VPS hosting.

This guide assumes Ubuntu or Debian on Hetzner. On another Linux VPS, map packages accordingly. For the generic Docker flow, see Docker.

What you need

• Hetzner VPS with root access
• SSH access from your laptop
• Docker and Docker Compose
• Model auth credentials
• Optional provider credentials (WhatsApp QR, Telegram bot token, Gmail OAuth)
• ~20 minutes

Quick path

1. Provision Hetzner VPS
2. Install Docker
3. Clone the OpenClaw repository
4. Create persistent host directories
5. Configure .env and docker-compose.yml
6. Bake required binaries into the image
7. docker compose up -d
8. Verify persistence and Gateway access

1. Provision the VPS

   Create an Ubuntu or Debian VPS in Hetzner, then connect as root:

   ssh root@YOUR_VPS_IP
   

   Treat the VPS as stateful, not disposable infrastructure.

2. Install Docker (on the VPS)

   apt-get update
   apt-get install -y git curl ca-certificates
   curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
   

   Verify:

   docker --version
   docker compose version
   
3. Clone the OpenClaw repository

   git clone https://github.com/openclaw/openclaw.git
   cd openclaw
   

   This guide builds a custom image so any binaries you bake in survive restarts.

4. Create persistent host directories

   Docker containers are ephemeral; all long-lived state must live on the host.

   mkdir -p /root/.openclaw/workspace
   
   # Set ownership to the container user (uid 1000):
   chown -R 1000:1000 /root/.openclaw
   
5. Configure environment variables

   Create .env in the repository root:

   OPENCLAW_IMAGE=openclaw:latest
   OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN=
   OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_BIND=lan
   OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT=18789
   
   OPENCLAW_CONFIG_DIR=/root/.openclaw
   OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE_DIR=/root/.openclaw/workspace
   
   GOG_KEYRING_PASSWORD=
   XDG_CONFIG_HOME=/home/node/.openclaw
   

   Set OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN to manage the stable gateway token through .env; otherwise configure gateway.auth.token before relying on clients across restarts. If neither is set, OpenClaw uses a runtime-only token for that startup. Generate a keyring password for GOG_KEYRING_PASSWORD:

   openssl rand -hex 32
   

   Do not commit this file. It holds container/runtime env such as OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN. Stored provider OAuth/API-key auth lives in the mounted ~/.openclaw/agents/<agentId>/agent/auth-profiles.json.

6. Docker Compose configuration

   Create or update docker-compose.yml:

   services:
     openclaw-gateway:
       image: ${OPENCLAW_IMAGE}
       build: .
       restart: unless-stopped
       env_file:
         - .env
       environment:
         - HOME=/home/node
         - NODE_ENV=production
         - TERM=xterm-256color
         - OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_BIND=${OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_BIND}
         - OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT=${OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT}
         - OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN=${OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_TOKEN}
         - GOG_KEYRING_PASSWORD=${GOG_KEYRING_PASSWORD}
         - XDG_CONFIG_HOME=${XDG_CONFIG_HOME}
         - PATH=/home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew/bin:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
       volumes:
         - ${OPENCLAW_CONFIG_DIR}:/home/node/.openclaw
         - ${OPENCLAW_WORKSPACE_DIR}:/home/node/.openclaw/workspace
       ports:
         # Recommended: keep the Gateway loopback-only on the VPS; access via SSH tunnel.
         # To expose it publicly, remove the `127.0.0.1:` prefix and firewall accordingly.
         - "127.0.0.1:${OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT}:18789"
       command:
         [
           "node",
           "dist/index.js",
           "gateway",
           "--bind",
           "${OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_BIND}",
           "--port",
           "${OPENCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT}",
           "--allow-unconfigured",
         ]
   

   --allow-unconfigured is only for bootstrap convenience, not a substitute for real gateway configuration. Still set auth (gateway.auth.token or password) and a safe bind mode for your deployment.

7. Shared Docker VM runtime steps

   Follow the shared runtime guide for the common Docker host flow:

   • Bake required binaries into the image
   • Build and launch
   • What persists where
   • Updates
8. Hetzner-specific access

   After the shared build and launch steps, open the tunnel.

   Prerequisite: ensure your VPS sshd config allows TCP forwarding. If you hardened your SSH config, check /etc/ssh/sshd_config and set:

   AllowTcpForwarding local
   

   local allows ssh -L local forwards from your laptop while blocking remote forwards from the server. Setting it to no fails the tunnel with: channel 3: open failed: administratively prohibited: open failed

   After confirming TCP forwarding is enabled, restart the SSH service (systemctl restart ssh) and run the tunnel from your laptop:

   ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 root@YOUR_VPS_IP
   

   Open http://127.0.0.1:18789/ and paste the configured shared secret. This guide uses the gateway token by default; use your configured password instead if you switched to password auth.

The shared persistence map lives in Docker VM Runtime.

Infrastructure as Code (Terraform)

For teams preferring infrastructure-as-code workflows, a community-maintained Terraform setup provides:

• Modular Terraform configuration with remote state management
• Automated provisioning via cloud-init
• Deployment scripts (bootstrap, deploy, backup/restore)
• Security hardening (firewall, UFW, SSH-only access)
• SSH tunnel configuration for gateway access

Repositories:

• Infrastructure: openclaw-terraform-hetzner
• Docker config: openclaw-docker-config

This approach complements the Docker setup above with reproducible deployments, version-controlled infrastructure, and automated disaster recovery.

Community-maintained. For issues or contributions, see the repository links above.

Next steps

• Set up messaging channels: Channels
• Configure the Gateway: Gateway configuration
• Keep OpenClaw up to date: Updating

Related

• Install overview
• Fly.io
• Docker
• VPS hosting