Phase 2 / Ep 07: Gateway Management —— start, stop, restart, and daemon mode

🎯 Learning Objectives: Master Gateway's starting, stopping, restarting, and daemon configuration.

1. What is Gateway?

Gateway is OpenClaw's control plane—it does not directly handle AI inference, but is responsible for:

• Receiving messages from all Channels
• Authentication and permission checks
• Routing messages to the correct Agent
• Plugin pipeline execution
• Logging and monitoring

2. Core Commands

Start Gateway

# Run in foreground (for development and debugging)
openclaw gateway start

# Background daemon mode (for production)
openclaw gateway start --daemon

Stop Gateway

openclaw gateway stop

Restart Gateway

# Graceful restart (no message loss)
openclaw gateway restart

Check Status

openclaw status

3. Detailed Explanation of Daemon Mode

Daemon mode allows OpenClaw to run silently in the background, even if the Terminal is closed.

macOS: Using LaunchAgent

# Install daemon
openclaw onboard --install-daemon

# Manual management
launchctl load ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.openclaw.gateway.plist
launchctl unload ~/Library/LaunchAgents/ai.openclaw.gateway.plist

Linux: Using systemd

sudo systemctl start openclaw
sudo systemctl stop openclaw
sudo systemctl enable openclaw   # Autostart on boot

4. CLI vs Telegram Comparison

Operation	CLI Command	Telegram Command	Description
Start Gateway	openclaw gateway start	N/A	CLI-only operation
Stop Gateway	openclaw gateway stop	N/A	CLI-only operation
Restart Gateway	openclaw gateway restart	/restart	Telegram requires admin
Check Status	openclaw status	/status	Available via both
Diagnose & Repair	openclaw doctor	/doctor	Available via both

⚠️ Gateway management is an infrastructure operation, mostly performed via CLI. Telegram's /restart requires whitelisted user permissions.

Next Episode Preview: Ep 08, a deep dive into openclaw config and openclaw.json, mastering the art of configuration management.