Deploy openclaw.ai on Google Cloud

Open the Compute Engine Console and create a new VM:

1. Click Create Instance
2. Name your instance (e.g., openclaw-vm)
3. Choose a Region and Zone close to you (e.g., us-central1-a)
4. Under Machine configuration, select E2 → e2-small (2 GB RAM) or a current equivalent
5. Under Boot disk, click Change → select Ubuntu 24.04 LTS or a newer supported LTS release, with 20 GB or more
6. Under Firewall, leave HTTP and HTTPS unchecked; the Gateway will remain private
7. Click Create

# Alternative: Create via gcloud CLI
gcloud compute instances create openclaw-vm \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  --machine-type=e2-small \
  --image-family=ubuntu-2204-lts \
  --image-project=ubuntu-os-cloud \
  --boot-disk-size=20GB \
  --tags=openclaw-server

The easiest way to connect is through the GCP Console:

1. Go to Compute Engine → VM instances
2. Click the SSH button next to your instance

Or connect from your local terminal:

# Connect using gcloud (auto-handles SSH keys)
gcloud compute ssh openclaw-vm --zone=us-central1-a

# Or use standard SSH with the external IP
ssh username@your-vm-external-ip

Update the package index and upgrade all installed packages:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y

openclaw.ai requires Node.js 22.22.3+, 24.15+, or 25.9+ (installer defaults to Node 26). Install it from the official NodeSource repository:

curl -fsSL https://deb.nodesource.com/setup_26.x | sudo -E bash -
sudo apt-get install -y nodejs
node --version  # Should show v26.x.x

Run the official one-line installer:

curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash

Launch the interactive onboarding wizard. The --install-daemon flag automatically configures openclaw.ai to run as a background service:

openclaw onboard --install-daemon

The wizard will walk you through:

• Authentication setup (API keys for your LLM provider)
• Gateway configuration (port, allowed origins)
• Optional channel setup (Slack, Discord, etc.)

Confirm everything is running correctly:

# Check system configuration
openclaw doctor

# Verify the gateway is healthy
openclaw health

# Print the authenticated dashboard URL
openclaw dashboard --no-open

# On your local computer, forward the private Gateway port
ssh -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789 YOUR_USER@your-vm-external-ip
# Then open http://127.0.0.1:18789

Keep the Gateway on its default loopback bind. You do not need a VPC firewall rule for port 18789; use the SSH tunnel from Step 7:

# Run this on your local computer
gcloud compute ssh openclaw-vm \
  --zone=us-central1-a \
  -- -N -L 18789:127.0.0.1:18789

# Then open http://127.0.0.1:18789

The --install-daemon flag from Step 6 already set up a systemd user service. To check its status:

# Check gateway status via openclaw CLI
openclaw gateway status

# Or check directly via systemd
systemctl --user status openclaw-gateway

# View live logs
journalctl --user -u openclaw-gateway -f

The service will automatically restart on failure and start on boot.