\n
You should see a line showing something is listening on port 18789:<\/p>\n
LISTEN 0 511 127.0.0.1:18789 0.0.0.0:* users:((\"openclaw-gatewa\",pid=3948,fd=24))\r\nLISTEN 0 511 [::1]:18789 [::]:* users:((\"openclaw-gatewa\",pid=3948,fd=26))<\/pre>\nIf the output is empty, the gateway isn\u2019t running, go back and check your screen session with screen -rd openclaw<\/code>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n
Once the tunnel is active, open your browser and paste the full token URL from your gateway output:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
http:\/\/localhost:18789\/#token=YOUR_TOKEN_HERE\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n\n
If you missed the token from the gateway startup output, retrieve it directly from the config file:<\/p>\n
cat ~\/.openclaw\/openclaw.json | grep token<\/code><\/p>\nYou should see the OpenClaw Gateway Dashboard with \u201cHealth OK\u201d in the top right corner.<\/p>\n
![\"openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/openclaw-gateway-and-dashboard-1024x486.png\")
<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
\nStep 7: Pair Your Telegram Account<\/h2>\n
For security, OpenClaw requires you to \"pair\" before it will respond to your messages. This prevents random people from chatting with your AI.<\/p>\n
Open Telegram and send any message to your new bot (e.g., \"hello\").<\/p>\n
The bot will respond with a pairing code<\/strong> like ABCD1234<\/code>.<\/p>\nNow approve this pairing from your terminal:<\/p>\n
openclaw pairing approve telegram ABCD1234<\/code><\/pre>\nReplace ABCD1234<\/code> with your actual pairing code.<\/p>\n
\nStep 8: Start Chatting!<\/h2>\n
Go back to Telegram and send a message. OpenClaw should now respond!<\/p>\n
Try asking it:<\/p>\n
\n- \"What can you do?\"<\/li>\n
- \"What's the weather like?\"<\/li>\n
- \"Tell me a joke\"<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
![\"openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/17-openclaw-installed-1.webp\")
<\/p>\n
Congratulations!<\/strong> You now have your own personal AI assistant running on your VPS!<\/p>\n
\nManaging Your OpenClaw Instance<\/h2>\nCheck Status<\/h3>\nopenclaw status<\/code><\/pre>\nRestart the Gateway<\/h3>\n
If running in screen:<\/p>\n
screen -rd openclaw\r\n# Press Ctrl+C to stop, then run:\r\nopenclaw gateway<\/code><\/pre>\nView Configuration<\/h3>\ncat ~\/.openclaw\/openclaw.json<\/code><\/pre>\n
\nTroubleshooting<\/h2>\n\n
\"Connection refused\" when running the SSH tunnel<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n
This means the gateway isn\u2019t running on the VPS at that moment. The tunnel can only forward traffic if OpenClaw is actively running. Check whether it\u2019s running:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
ss -tlnp | grep 18789\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n\n
If that returns nothing, reattach to your screen session and restart the gateway:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
screen -rd openclaw\r\nopenclaw gateway\r\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n\n
Then try the tunnel command again from your local machine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
\"Gateway unreachable\" or can\u2019t connect on port 18789<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n
The gateway binds to\u00a0127.0.0.1<\/code>\u00a0by design, which means it\u2019s intentionally not accessible from the public internet. You must use the SSH tunnel described in Step 6 to reach it. Do not try to open\u00a0http:\/\/your-vps-ip:18789<\/code> directly in a browser, as it won\u2019t work.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\"systemctl --user unavailable\" error<\/h3>\n
This is normal on VPS environments without systemd user sessions. Use screen<\/code> to run the gateway in the background:<\/p>\nscreen -S openclaw\r\nopenclaw gateway\r\n# Ctrl+A, then D to detach<\/code><\/pre>\nBot not responding?<\/h3>\n\n- Check the gateway is running:
openclaw status<\/code><\/li>\n- Verify your pairing:
openclaw pairing list telegram<\/code><\/li>\n- Make sure you approved the pairing code<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
\"API key invalid\" error?<\/h3>\n
Make sure your Anthropic API key is correct and has credits.<\/p>\n
Need to reconfigure?<\/h3>\n
Run the wizard again:<\/p>\n
openclaw onboard<\/code><\/pre>\nSecurity audit<\/h3>\n
Run a security check on your installation:<\/p>\n
openclaw security audit --deep<\/code><\/pre>\n
\nWhat You've Accomplished<\/h2>\n
By following this guide, you've successfully:<\/p>\n
\n- Set up a secure, dedicated user for OpenClaw<\/li>\n
- Installed OpenClaw on your VPS<\/li>\n
- Created a Telegram bot and connected it to OpenClaw<\/li>\n
- Paired your Telegram account for secure access<\/li>\n
- Started chatting with your personal AI assistant<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Your AI assistant is now live! It can chat with you, remember context across conversations, search the web, run commands on your server, and much more.<\/p>\n
\nFAQ<\/h2>\nIs OpenClaw free to use?<\/h3>\n
OpenClaw itself is free and open source. However, you'll need to pay for:<\/p>\n
\n- Your VPS hosting<\/li>\n
- Anthropic API usage (pay-per-token)<\/li>\n
- Optional: ElevenLabs for voice features<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Can I connect other messaging apps?<\/h3>\n
Yes! OpenClaw supports Discord, WhatsApp, Signal, Slack, and more. Run openclaw onboard<\/code> again to add additional channels.<\/p>\nHow do I update OpenClaw?<\/h3>\n\u2265curl -fsSL https:\/\/openclaw.ai\/install.sh | bash<\/code><\/pre>\nThen restart your gateway.<\/p>\n
Where is my OpenClaw data stored?<\/h3>\n
All data is stored locally on your VPS in ~\/.openclaw\/<\/code> (config) and your workspace folder (memory, files). Nothing is sent to external servers except API calls to Anthropic.<\/p>\nIs OpenClaw secure?<\/h3>\n
OpenClaw has full access to whatever machine it runs on. That's why we strongly recommend:<\/p>\n
\n- Using an isolated VPS (not your main computer)<\/li>\n
- Not connecting sensitive accounts<\/li>\n
- Being careful about prompt injection in group chats<\/li>\n
- Running
openclaw security audit --deep<\/code> to check your setup<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Install OpenClaw on an Ubuntu VPS in 30 minutes. Connect Telegram, add your API key, and run your own AI assistant securely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":15364,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-devops","category-tutorials"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15317"}],"version-history":[{"count":35,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15679,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15317\/revisions\/15679"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15317"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15317"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15317"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Install](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Install-OpenClaw-1024x683.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/01-security-warning-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/02-onboarding-mode-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/03-model-provider-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"anthropic](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/04-anthropic-auth-method-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/05-enter-api-key-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/06-default-model-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/07-telegram-instructions-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/08-telegram-token-entered-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/09-skills-config-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/11-skills-list-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Openclaw](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/12-skip-goplaces-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"Enable](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/15-hooks-1-1024x576.webp\")
<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ssdnodes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/2026-03-09-164018_1920x1080_scrot-1024x576.png\")
<\/p>\n