RunClaw Docs

RunClaw can manage servers provisioned on Hetzner, provisioned on Vultr, or connected from your existing Ubuntu server over SSH. In every case, you keep shell access so you can debug issues, inspect logs, install tools, or modify the host directly.

Connect via SSH

If you provisioned on Hetzner or Vultr, your SSH key was added during setup. If you connected an existing server, use the SSH access you already manage.

Connect with:

ssh root@YOUR_SERVER_IP

Find your server IP on your RunClaw dashboard if you used a cloud path. If you used the SSH path, connect to the same host you attached to RunClaw.

Missing SSH access on a cloud path? Add your SSH key in the provider you chose, then rebuild or recreate the server from RunClaw if needed.

Check what's running

Once connected, here are the most useful commands:

# See all running containers
docker ps

# Check container resource usage (CPU, memory)
docker stats

# Check disk space
df -h

# Check system resources
htop

View agent logs

# Live logs (follow mode)
docker logs -f openclaw-gateway

# Last 100 lines
docker logs --tail 100 openclaw-gateway

# Live logs
docker logs -f agent-zero

# Last 100 lines
docker logs --tail 100 agent-zero

# Live logs
docker logs -f goose

# Last 100 lines
docker logs --tail 100 goose

Restart your agent

If your agent is misbehaving, a restart usually fixes it:

Go to your instance on the RunClaw dashboard and click Restart. This restarts the agent container without affecting the server.

# Navigate to the agent directory
cd /opt/openclaw   # or /opt/agent-zero, /opt/goose

# Restart all containers
docker compose restart

# Or do a full recreate (pulls latest config)
docker compose up -d

View sidecar logs

The sidecar is a small management service that connects your VPS to the RunClaw dashboard. If your instance shows "Offline" on the dashboard, check sidecar logs:

# View sidecar status
systemctl status openclaw-sidecar

# View sidecar logs (live)
journalctl -u openclaw-sidecar -f --lines 50

# Restart sidecar
systemctl restart openclaw-sidecar

Check cloud-init (Hetzner and Vultr only)

If your agent isn't starting after a fresh cloud-provisioned deployment, cloud-init might still be running:

# Check if cloud-init is still running
cloud-init status

# View cloud-init log for errors
cat /var/log/cloud-init-output.log | tail -100

Cloud-init runs once during the first boot on Hetzner and Vultr servers. It installs Docker, Caddy, your agent, and the sidecar. This takes about 2 minutes.

If you used Connect existing server, skip this section. That path uses the dashboard-generated setup command instead of cloud-init.

File locations

What	Path
OpenClaw config	`/opt/openclaw/openclaw.json`
OpenClaw docker-compose	`/opt/openclaw/docker-compose.yml`
Agent Zero docker-compose	`/opt/agent-zero/docker-compose.yml`
Caddy config	`/opt/openclaw/Caddyfile` (or `/opt/agent-zero/Caddyfile`)
Sidecar binary	`/opt/openclaw-sidecar/openclaw-sidecar`
Sidecar config	`/opt/openclaw-sidecar/config.json`
TLS certificates	Managed automatically by Caddy (Let's Encrypt)

Be careful when editing config files directly. Changes you make via SSH may be overwritten when you use the RunClaw dashboard to update settings. For most tasks, the dashboard is the safer option.

Back to Getting Started

SSH & Server Access