A complete guide to installing OpenClaw on DigitalOcean — choosing the right Droplet size, configuring the firewall, installing dependencies, and keeping the agent running.
In this guide
In the DigitalOcean control panel, create a new Droplet: choose Ubuntu 22.04 LTS, select the Basic plan with at least 2GB RAM / 1 vCPU (the $12/month tier is minimum — $18/month 2GB/2vCPU recommended for comfortable operation). Add your SSH key during creation. Choose the datacenter region closest to your users.
In DigitalOcean, go to Networking → Firewalls → Create Firewall. Add inbound rules for: SSH (port 22) from your IP only, HTTP (80) and HTTPS (443) from all sources, and any custom ports your OpenClaw agents use. Assign the firewall to your Droplet. DigitalOcean firewalls act at the network level, blocking traffic before it reaches your server.
Connect via SSH: ssh root@your_droplet_ip. Create a non-root user: adduser ubuntu — usermod -aG sudo ubuntu. Switch to that user: su - ubuntu. Update the system: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y. Install UFW: sudo ufw allow OpenSSH && sudo ufw enable. Always operate as a non-root user for security.
Install nvm: curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.39.0/install.sh | bash — source ~/.bashrc — nvm install --lts. This installs the latest Node.js LTS version. Avoid installing Node.js via apt as the repository version is often outdated. Verify: node --version and npm --version.
Follow the OpenClaw installation steps from the official docs. After initialization, test your agent is working by running a quick task. Then install PM2 (npm install -g pm2) and use it to keep OpenClaw running persistently. Run pm2 startup to generate the systemd command, execute it, then pm2 save to persist your process list across reboots.
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