OpenClaw Backup and Rollback

Prerequisites

A FlexusL instance deployed with an OpenClaw application image is available. For deployment details, see Summary of OpenClaw Best Practices.

Procedure

1. Log in to the FlexusL console.
2. Click Configure Now on the target FlexusL instance card and go to the application details page.

   If Configure Now is not displayed, click the resource card to go to the resource details page and choose Application Details from the left navigation pane.

3. Click Backup and rollback in the Application Management card.

   

4. Select manual backup or scheduled backup as required.

   

   Table 1 Backup operations

   Backup Operation	Backup Type	Description	Procedure
   Manual backup	Manual	Manually triggered by users. If the configuration is not changed, the backup is not saved. A maximum of five manual backups can be retained. Once this limit (five backups) is reached, no more backups can be created. In this case, you need to manually delete historical backups.	Click Manual Backup, enter remarks, and click Confirm.
   Scheduled backup	Scheduled	Once enabled, scheduled backups run automatically at 00:00 every day. If the configuration is not changed, the backup will be skipped. A maximum of seven backups can be retained. A maximum of seven scheduled backups can be retained. Once this limit (seven backups) is reached, the system automatically deletes the oldest backup.	Use the toggle switch to enable or disable scheduled backup. Enable: Disable:
   Automatic backup	Automatic	OpenClaw's native backup capability. When a write operation is performed on the openclaw.json configuration file, OpenClaw automatically creates a backup file starting with openclaw.json.bak. When a FlexusL instance is created, five backup files are automatically generated. A maximum of five backup files can be retained. Once this limit (five backups) is reached, OpenClaw automatically deletes the backup files.	Access the OpenClaw web page, modify the openclaw.json configuration file, and save the changes. This will trigger an automatic backup. For other operations that can trigger automatic backup, see the official OpenClaw documentation.

5. After the backup is complete, view all backup files in the backup file list and perform the following operations on the backup files as needed.

   Table 2 Operations on backup files

   Operation	Description	Procedure
   Modifying remarks	Modify the remarks of a backup file.	Edit the content in the Remarks column of the target backup and click Confirm.
   Rollback	Restore the configuration from a historical backup file and the gateway automatically restarts for the configuration to take effect. During the restart, services are temporarily unavailable. Before the rollback, the system automatically creates a snapshot of the current configuration to prevent recovery failures if the rollback fails.	Click Roll Back in the Operation column of the target backup, enter YES to confirm the rollback, and click Confirm. The system automatically rolls back the configuration and restarts the gateway.
   Deletion	Delete a specified backup file and its metadata. Deleted backup files cannot be recovered.	Click Delete in the Operation column of the target backup, enter DELETE to confirm the deletion, and click Confirm.

   

   To view the configuration details of a backup file, remotely log in to the FlexusL instance and check the following directories:

   • File storage directory for manual and scheduled backups: /var/backups/openclaw/config
   • File storage directory for automatic backups (directory varies by version):
     • Version 26.1.30: /root/.openclaw/
     • Versions later than 26.1.30: /home/openclaw/.openclaw/

Troubleshooting