How to Run OpenClaw on IONOS — European AI Hosting
IONOS offers European market hosting with AI-friendly environments. Here's how to deploy OpenClaw on IONOS.
Running AI workloads in Europe shouldn't require a PhD in cloud infrastructure or a six-figure DevOps salary. If you want GDPR-compliant hosting, data residency guarantees, and a provider that won't randomly jack up your prices, IONOS is one of the most underrated options available — especially for deploying OpenClaw.
This guide walks you through the entire process: provisioning an IONOS VPS, building OpenClaw from source, configuring it for headless operation, and keeping it running 24/7. We'll cover real costs, real commands, and real decisions you'll need to make along the way.
Let's get into it.
Why IONOS for OpenClaw?
Before we touch a terminal, let's talk about why this pairing makes sense.
OpenClaw is an open-source AI agent platform that gives you full control over your deployment stack. No vendor lock-in, no opaque API pricing that changes quarterly, no surprise rate limits. You clone the repo, you build it, you own it. It's the kind of tool that rewards people who want to understand what's actually running under the hood.
IONOS is a German-headquartered hosting provider that's been around since 1988 (originally as 1&1). They offer KVM-virtualized Linux VPS instances with NVMe SSDs, unmetered bandwidth, and — critically — data centers located exclusively in the EU. Frankfurt, Paris, Madrid, London. Your data stays where you put it.
The combination gives you:
- Full GDPR compliance without having to trust a US-based provider's "EU region" promises
- Affordable compute starting at roughly €1/month
- ISO 27001 certification and EU Cloud Code of Conduct compliance
- No GPU tax — OpenClaw runs perfectly on CPU-only instances
- 99.99% uptime SLA with DDoS protection included
If you're building AI agents for European clients, handling EU citizen data, or just want to keep your infrastructure in a jurisdiction that takes privacy seriously, this is the play.
Choosing the Right IONOS VPS Plan
IONOS offers a straightforward lineup of VPS plans. Here's what matters for OpenClaw:
| Plan | vCPU | RAM | Storage (NVMe) | Price (€/mo) | OpenClaw Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VPS 100 | 1 | 1 GB | 10 GB | ~€1 | Too tight for builds |
| VPS 200 | 1 | 2 GB | 20 GB | ~€2 | Workable for runtime only |
| VPS 300 | 2 | 2 GB | 40 GB | ~€4 | Sweet spot — build + run |
| VPS 400 | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB | ~€6 | Comfortable headroom |
| VPS 500 | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB | ~€12 | Multi-agent or heavy workloads |
My recommendation: Start with VPS 300 at ~€4/month. Two vCPUs handle the compilation process without crawling, 2 GB of RAM is enough for both the build toolchain and runtime, and 40 GB of NVMe storage gives you plenty of room for the OpenClaw binary, assets, logs, and future expansions.
All plans include unlimited bandwidth (up to 1 Gbps), IPv4 and IPv6 addresses, and IONOS's managed firewall. You can add automated backups for an extra €2/month, which I'd recommend once you have a working deployment you don't want to rebuild.
IONOS also supports vertical scaling — you can bump up to more CPU and RAM without downtime. Start small, scale when you need to. That's the whole point of VPS hosting.
Step 1: Provision Your IONOS VPS
Head to ionos.com and create an account if you don't have one.
- Navigate to Servers & Cloud → VPS
- Select your plan (VPS 300 recommended)
- Choose your operating system: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS (best dependency support for OpenClaw's SDL2 stack)
- Select your data center location: Frankfurt for strict German/EU data residency
- Upload your SSH public key (strongly recommended over password auth)
- Complete the order
Provisioning takes 2–5 minutes. Once it's live, note your public IP address from the IONOS control panel.
A note on data center selection: If your users or clients are primarily in France, pick Paris. Southern Europe, pick Madrid. But for maximum GDPR credibility and the broadest EU compliance story, Frankfurt is the default answer. IONOS guarantees your data stays in the selected data center — no silent replication to US regions.
Step 2: Secure and Prepare the Server
SSH into your fresh VPS:
ssh root@YOUR_VPS_IP
Or if you're using a key file:
ssh -i ~/.ssh/your_key root@YOUR_VPS_IP
First things first — update everything and install baseline tools:
apt update && apt upgrade -y
apt install curl git wget htop ufw fail2ban -y
Now lock down the firewall. This is a production server, not a playground:
ufw allow OpenSSH
ufw allow 80/tcp # HTTP, if you're serving assets
ufw allow 443/tcp # HTTPS, if you add TLS later
ufw --force enable
Set up fail2ban to block brute-force SSH attempts:
systemctl enable --now fail2ban
If you want to go further (and you should for production), create a non-root user and disable root SSH login:
adduser deployer
usermod -aG sudo deployer
Then edit /etc/ssh/sshd_config:
PermitRootLogin no
PasswordAuthentication no
Restart SSH:
systemctl restart sshd
From here on, SSH in as your deployer user and use sudo for privileged commands. This takes 3 minutes and prevents the most common attack vector on internet-facing Linux servers.
Step 3: Install Dependencies and Build OpenClaw
OpenClaw uses C++ with SDL2 for cross-platform rendering and audio. On Ubuntu 22.04, installing the full dependency chain is one command:
sudo apt install build-essential cmake \
libsdl2-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev \
libpng-dev libglew-dev libfreetype6-dev libphysfs-dev \
libvorbis-dev libavcodec-dev libavformat-dev libavutil-dev \
libswresample-dev libswscale-dev ffmpeg -y
This pulls in the compiler toolchain, CMake build system, and all the SDL2/multimedia libraries OpenClaw needs. On a VPS 300, expect this to take about 2–3 minutes.
Now clone and build OpenClaw:
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/pjasicek/OpenClaw.git
cd OpenClaw
mkdir build && cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
make -j$(nproc)
The make -j$(nproc) flag tells the compiler to use all available CPU cores. On a 2-vCPU VPS 300, this typically completes in 5–10 minutes. You'll see a wall of compiler output — as long as it ends without errors, you're golden.
Verify the build succeeded:
ls -la openclaw
You should see the openclaw binary. If you get build errors, they're almost always missing dependencies. Re-read the error message, install whatever library it's complaining about, and re-run make.
Step 4: Configure OpenClaw for Headless Operation
Here's where VPS deployment diverges from desktop usage. Your IONOS VPS doesn't have a monitor, GPU, or speakers. OpenClaw needs to be told to run without trying to open a window or play audio.
Install a virtual framebuffer:
sudo apt install xvfb -y
Set environment variables for headless operation:
export SDL_VIDEODRIVER=dummy
export SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy
Test that OpenClaw runs:
cd ~/OpenClaw/build
xvfb-run -a ./openclaw
If the process starts without crashing, you're in business. Check the output for any error messages about missing asset files — OpenClaw may require original game data files (WAP/WAD format) to fully initialize. These are roughly 50 MB and need to be obtained legally from the original 1997 Captain Claw release.
Place any required asset files in the working directory:
cp /path/to/your/CLAW.REZ ~/OpenClaw/build/
Step 5: Create a Systemd Service for Always-On Operation
Running OpenClaw in a terminal session that dies when you disconnect is amateur hour. Let's make it a proper system service:
sudo cat > /etc/systemd/system/openclaw.service <<'EOF'
[Unit]
Description=OpenClaw AI Agent Platform
After=network.target
[Service]
Type=simple
ExecStart=/usr/bin/xvfb-run -a /home/deployer/OpenClaw/build/openclaw
Environment=SDL_VIDEODRIVER=dummy
Environment=SDL_AUDIODRIVER=dummy
WorkingDirectory=/home/deployer/OpenClaw/build
Restart=always
RestartSec=10
User=deployer
StandardOutput=journal
StandardError=journal
[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target
EOF
Enable and start the service:
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable openclaw
sudo systemctl start openclaw
Check that it's running:
sudo systemctl status openclaw
You should see active (running) in green. The Restart=always directive means if OpenClaw crashes, systemd will restart it after 10 seconds. This gives you true always-on operation — your AI agents keep running through reboots, crashes, and maintenance windows.
View logs anytime with:
journalctl -u openclaw -f
The -f flag tails the log in real time. Drop it to see the full history.
Step 6: Serve Assets and Connect External Services
If you want to serve OpenClaw assets, mods, or agent outputs over HTTP (useful for dashboards, file distribution, or API endpoints), set up Nginx:
sudo apt install nginx -y
sudo ln -s /home/deployer/OpenClaw /var/www/html/openclaw
sudo systemctl restart nginx
Your files are now accessible at http://YOUR_VPS_IP/openclaw. For production, add TLS with Let's Encrypt:
sudo apt install certbot python3-certbot-nginx -y
sudo certbot --nginx -d your-domain.com
Connecting to Telegram for notifications and control:
If you want your OpenClaw agents to send alerts or receive commands via Telegram, install the Telegram bot dependencies and configure a webhook. This is especially useful for monitoring agent health from your phone:
pip3 install python-telegram-bot
Create a simple monitoring script at /home/deployer/monitor.py:
import subprocess
import requests
BOT_TOKEN = "your_telegram_bot_token"
CHAT_ID = "your_chat_id"
def check_openclaw():
result = subprocess.run(
["systemctl", "is-active", "openclaw"],
capture_output=True, text=True
)
status = result.stdout.strip()
if status != "active":
msg = f"⚠️ OpenClaw is {status} on IONOS VPS"
url = f"https://api.telegram.org/bot{BOT_TOKEN}/sendMessage"
requests.post(url, data={"chat_id": CHAT_ID, "text": msg})
check_openclaw()
Add it to cron to run every 5 minutes:
crontab -e
# Add this line:
*/5 * * * * /usr/bin/python3 /home/deployer/monitor.py
Now you get a Telegram ping if OpenClaw goes down. Simple, effective, no third-party monitoring service needed.
Step 7: Monitoring and Maintenance
Your IONOS control panel gives you console access, reboot controls, and snapshot management. Use these.
Take a snapshot after successful setup:
Go to your IONOS panel → Server → Snapshots → Create Snapshot. This gives you a restore point you can roll back to in minutes if you break something later.
Enable automated backups:
In the IONOS panel, enable the €2/month auto-backup option. It's cheap insurance against data loss.
On-server monitoring:
# Real-time resource usage
htop
# Disk usage
df -h
# OpenClaw-specific logs
journalctl -u openclaw --since "1 hour ago"
# Network connections
ss -tulnp
Update schedule:
Set a monthly reminder to:
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
cd ~/OpenClaw && git pull
cd build && cmake .. -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release && make -j$(nproc)
sudo systemctl restart openclaw
This keeps your OS patched and OpenClaw on the latest version.
Cost Breakdown
Let's be honest about what this actually costs:
| Item | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|
| IONOS VPS 300 (2 vCPU, 2 GB RAM, 40 GB NVMe) | €4 |
| Automated backups (optional, recommended) | €2 |
| Bandwidth | €0 (unlimited included) |
| Domain name (optional) | ~€1 |
| Total | €6–7/month |
That's your always-on, GDPR-compliant, European-hosted OpenClaw deployment for less than the price of two coffees. Compare that to managed AI platforms charging $20–200/month for comparable functionality with less control and questionable data residency.
If you need more power later, upgrading to VPS 500 (4 vCPU, 8 GB RAM) is €12/month. Still trivially cheap.
What You've Built
At the end of this guide, you have:
- ✅ An OpenClaw instance running 24/7 on European infrastructure
- ✅ GDPR-compliant data residency in your chosen EU data center
- ✅ Automatic restart on failure via systemd
- ✅ Firewall hardened with UFW and fail2ban
- ✅ HTTP serving capability for assets and outputs
- ✅ Telegram monitoring for real-time alerts
- ✅ Snapshot and backup recovery options
- ✅ Total monthly cost under €7
Next Steps
Once your base OpenClaw deployment is stable, here's where to go:
-
Explore the OpenClaw ecosystem on Claw Mart — browse listings for pre-built agents, configurations, extensions, and community-shared setups that you can deploy directly onto your IONOS instance.
-
Containerize with Docker — Create a Dockerfile for your OpenClaw build so you can redeploy in seconds. OpenClaw doesn't ship an official Docker image yet, but building one from your working setup is straightforward.
-
Add a reverse proxy with authentication — If you're exposing any endpoints, put them behind Nginx with basic auth or OAuth2 Proxy for access control.
-
Scale horizontally — Spin up multiple IONOS VPS instances running different OpenClaw agents, each in a different EU data center for redundancy.
-
Set up CI/CD — Use GitHub Actions to automatically build and deploy OpenClaw updates to your IONOS VPS when the upstream repo pushes new commits.
The whole point of running OpenClaw on your own infrastructure is control. You own the stack, you own the data, you decide what runs where. IONOS gives you the European hosting backbone to do it compliantly and cheaply.
Stop overthinking it. Spin up the VPS, build OpenClaw, and start shipping.