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Hosting
Boat
Boat, formerly ASCII Box, provides Ubuntu virtual machines with SSH and Docker. There are two different ways to use it with OpenClaw:
- Host the Gateway on Boat: the Gateway, channels, credentials, and workspace live on the VM. Follow the hosting steps below.
- Keep your Gateway elsewhere and run cloud sessions on Boat: use the existing Crabbox cloud worker provider. Do not install another OpenClaw sandbox provider plugin.
Boat owns VM allocation, billing, stop/resume, and snapshots. OpenClaw is not a Boat model provider and does not route inference through Boat's integrated agents.
Host the Gateway on Boat
Create and connect
Install the Boat CLI using its official quickstart,
sign in with boat login, and create a sandbox from your local terminal:
Copy the returned sandbox ID and use it explicitly in later commands. The
examples below use bx_23456789; replace it with your own ID.
--no-envavoids injecting Boat account environments and credentials into the new VM. Configure your OpenClaw connections during onboarding instead.--no-auto-stopis for an always-on Gateway and requires an eligible Boat plan. It keeps compute billing active until you stop the sandbox. For a bounded test, omit it and check the auto-stop deadline withboat info; the default is one hour. OpenClaw activity does not automatically extend Boat's deadline.
Install and onboard
Inside the Boat SSH shell, use the standard OpenClaw installer and onboarding:
For an existing installation, use openclaw configure to change connections
instead of repeating onboarding. The installer checks the Node runtime;
Boat's preinstalled Node is not a guarantee that it meets OpenClaw's current
requirements.
Keep the Gateway bound to loopback. If a user service cannot be installed in
your SSH environment, run openclaw gateway run in the foreground for testing,
or follow Linux service setup. A foreground process ends when
its terminal closes and does not restart after a Boat stop/resume.
Open the dashboard privately
From a second terminal on your own computer, forward the Gateway port:
Keep the forward running and open http://127.0.0.1:18789/. If you changed the
Gateway port, change --remote too; use another --local port if necessary.
For token authentication, run this in an interactive SSH terminal on the VM
and paste the token into the Control UI when prompted:
The forward is private and does not require boat host, a public preview URL,
relaxed origin checks, or disabled device authentication. Treat Gateway tokens
and any Boat access URLs as secrets. See remote access.
Stop, resume, and backups
Run these from your local terminal:
Stopping ends running processes. Boat restores the saved disk on resume, but
that is not an always-running Gateway or a separate backup. Recheck the auto-stop
deadline after resume, verify openclaw gateway status, and restart your service
or foreground Gateway if needed. Restart the port forward too. Boat can assign
a new IP address and SSH host key; boat ssh refreshes its own connection data.
Back up your OpenClaw state and workspace independently before deleting a VM or relying on a stopped snapshot long term. Boat's stopped-disk retention is bounded; see Boat snapshots and OpenClaw migration and backups.
Cloud workers through Crabbox
For a Gateway running elsewhere, Boat uses the bundled crabbox worker provider,
not a new Boat plugin. Crabbox accepts boat as a provider selector while its
canonical catalog and durable lease identity remain ascii-box. OpenClaw resolves
the aliases advertised by Crabbox for OS and machine discovery; it does not
maintain a second vendor catalog.
Configure the supported Crabbox CLI and Boat credentials for the OS user running
the Gateway. Follow the Crabbox Boat guide:
the adapter retains legacy ASCII_BOX_API_KEY / CRABBOX_ASCII_BOX_API_KEY,
asciiBox configuration, and endpoint names. A standalone boat login or
BOAT_API_KEY alone is not the documented Crabbox authentication contract.
Keep these credentials out of OpenClaw profile settings and setup commands.
Merge this profile into your existing configuration:
This starts cold, without prepared reserves or automatic snapshot capture. Size
selection is left to Crabbox. Add settings.class only after checking your
installed Crabbox's Boat sizing contract; when its catalog is unmapped, OpenClaw
does not invent CPU/RAM values or machine choices. Boat's own desktop and saved
snapshots do not imply support for OpenClaw's settings.desktop or warm images.
Cloud workers need a Gateway reachable over public TLS and the normal node pairing and execution approvals. Validate the profile, then follow the cloud worker verification flow to prove allocation, enrollment, a real agent turn, workspace reconciliation, and teardown with your account. A catalog lookup is not a live allocation test. Crabbox retains the lease and cleanup responsibility across interrupted dispatch; keep its state and original account/endpoint available for recovery.
Tool sandbox limitation
A cloud worker profile is different from agents.defaults.sandbox.backend.
Do not select Boat for the Crabbox tool sandbox unless
crabbox exec --check --provider boat reports both execution: true and
currentRepoStop: true. The Boat adapter checked for this guide reports both
as false; fixed lease IDs and SSH support alone are insufficient. Use the
SSH backend for an operator-managed running VM,
or a provider advertising the required Crabbox sandbox capabilities.
