Summary

Description:

When the OpenClaw Gateway is started and managed by systemd (e.g., via systemctl enable --now openclaw-gateway.service), the CLI command openclaw status still shows:

Gateway service │ systemd not installed

This is misleading — the service is actually running and healthy (confirmed via systemctl status, ps, and functional endpoints like /health and Telegram messaging). The CLI appears to only detect gateway processes launched directly by openclaw gateway, not those managed by systemd.

Steps to reproduce

1. Create /etc/systemd/system/openclaw-gateway.service (standard simple service, ExecStart=/usr/bin/openclaw gateway)
2. Run:

sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable --now openclaw-gateway

3. Verify it’s running:

systemctl status openclaw-gateway  # → active (running)
ps aux | grep openclaw             # → shows /usr/bin/openclaw gateway

4. Run openclaw status → observe Gateway service │ systemd not installed

Expected behavior

• If a process matching openclaw gateway is running and its parent is systemd (or it’s registered as a systemd unit), openclaw status should report:

Gateway service │ systemd active (running)

or at least avoid the false-negative "systemd not installed".

Actual behavior

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04 LTS
• OpenClaw version: 2026.2.24 (from openclaw status)
• This does not affect functionality — only the CLI’s status reporting is inaccurate.

Let me know if you’d like a patch suggestion (e.g., check systemctl is-active openclaw-gateway in the status command).

OpenClaw version

2026.2.24

Operating system

Ubuntu 24.04 LTS

Install method

npm Global

Logs, screenshots, and evidence

Impact and severity

No response

Additional information

Evidence

✅ Systemd service is active and healthy

$ systemctl status openclaw-gateway --no-pager
● openclaw-gateway.service - OpenClaw Gateway Service
   Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/openclaw-gateway.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
   Active: active (running) since Thu 2026-02-26 10:07:04 CST; 4h 20min ago
 Main PID: 879 (openclaw)
    Tasks: 18 (limit: 2267)
   Memory: 497.4M (limit: 1.5G)
   CGroup: /system.slice/openclaw-gateway.service
           ├─ 879 openclaw
           └─1307 openclaw-gateway

Process exists and handles traffic

$ ps aux | grep openclaw
root       879  0.8  4.2 2584544 497408 ?      Ssl  10:07   1:42 /usr/bin/openclaw gateway
root      1307  0.0  0.1 2584544 12340 ?      S    10:07   0:00 openclaw-gateway

openclaw status incorrectly reports systemd as missing

Gateway service │ systemd not installed   ← Despite above proof of active systemd unit
...
Channels        │ Telegram │ ON │ OK │ token config (8677…NMdk)

Functional verification confirms Gateway is operational

$ curl -s http://localhost:18789/health | jq .
{
  "status": "ok",
  "uptime": "4h20m",
  "agents": 1
}

# Journal shows live activity:
Feb 26 10:11:12 VM-0-17-ubuntu openclaw[1307]: [telegram] sendMessage ok chat=1016042263 message=67