SSH Access to Your Instance

Overview

SSH access gives you a direct terminal connection to the underlying VPS that runs your OpenClaw instance. This is intended for advanced users who need to debug issues, inspect logs, or make custom modifications.

Enabling SSH access permanently marks your instance as No Support. Read this page carefully before proceeding.

Before You Enable SSH

Enabling SSH access has permanent consequences:

• Your instance is permanently marked as No Support
• You will not be able to open support tickets for this instance
• This change cannot be reversed
• Standard support for billing and account questions remains available

Only enable SSH if you are comfortable managing a Linux server on your own.

Enabling SSH Access

1. Go to the Instance Dashboard
2. Click SSH Access in the quick actions
3. Paste your public SSH key into the text field
4. Check the confirmation box acknowledging the support implications
5. Click Enable SSH Access

Accepted Key Formats

ClawHosters accepts the following public key formats:

Paste the contents of your public key file (e.g., ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub). Do not paste your private key.

Generating a Key

If you do not have an SSH key yet:

ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your@email.com"

This creates two files: - ~/.ssh/id_ed25519 is your private key (keep this secret) - ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub is your public key (paste this into ClawHosters)

Connecting via SSH

After enabling SSH access, connect using:

ssh -p 2222 -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null root@<ip_address>

Replace <ip_address> with the IP shown in your Instance Dashboard.

Connection Details

Password authentication is disabled. Only the SSH key you provided during setup is accepted.

Host Key Warning

Hetzner recycles IP addresses from deleted servers. If you rebuild your instance, or if your instance is paused/frozen and later resumed/unfrozen, the server's SSH host key will change. Your SSH client may display a warning about a changed host key.

To avoid this issue, use the -o StrictHostKeyChecking=no -o UserKnownHostsFile=/dev/null flags as shown in the connection command above. Alternatively, remove the old host key entry from your ~/.ssh/known_hosts file before reconnecting.

SSH Security

Key-Only Authentication

Customer SSH access is secured through public key authentication. The SSH daemon inside the container is hardened with the following settings:

• Password authentication disabled
• Only public key authentication allowed
• Root login allowed with key only (no password)
• Challenge-response authentication disabled

Since password login is completely disabled, only the SSH key you provided during setup can be used to connect.

IP Address Changes

Your instance's IP address changes when you pause and resume it, or when you freeze and unfreeze it. Both operations delete the current server and create a new one, which gets a different IP address. After resuming or unfreezing, check your Instance Dashboard for the new IP and update your SSH connection command accordingly.

The subdomain URL is updated automatically, but SSH connections use the IP address directly.

What You Can Do with SSH

Once connected, you have root access to the VPS. Common tasks include:

• Viewing container logs: docker logs openclaw-<instance_id>
• Checking container status: docker ps
• Inspecting resource usage: htop or free -h
• Checking disk space: df -h
• Reading system logs: journalctl -u docker

The OpenClaw application runs inside a Docker container. The container data is stored in the openclaw_data Docker volume.

What to Avoid

Making changes to the server can break your instance. Be cautious with:

• Modifying Docker configuration or restarting Docker
• Changing firewall rules
• Modifying SSH daemon configuration
• Deleting or modifying files in /opt/openclaw/
• Stopping or removing the OpenClaw container

If something breaks, you can rebuild the instance from the dashboard, but custom changes will be lost.

Support Status

The No Support status is permanent and applies only to the specific instance where SSH was enabled. Your other instances retain full support.

Related Documentation

• Instance Settings and Configuration. LLM, messaging, web access, and SSH overview
• Starting and Stopping Instances. Power management and IP address changes
• Instance Overview. Instance lifecycle and statuses
• Troubleshooting Common Issues. Solutions for common problems