OpenClaw: 'Unsafe fallback OpenClaw temp dir' after update (openclaw commands crash)

Symptoms

• After updating OpenClaw, any openclaw ... command crashes with an error like:
  • Error: Unsafe fallback OpenClaw temp dir: /tmp/openclaw-1000
• Gateway restart may also fail because the CLI can’t finish startup.

Cause

OpenClaw tries to use a secure temp directory under /tmp for caches and CLI startup work.

If /tmp/openclaw isn’t available, it falls back to a per-user path like:

• /tmp/openclaw-<uid> (example: /tmp/openclaw-1000)

For safety on multi-user hosts, OpenClaw rejects the fallback directory if it is:

• not owned by your user, or
• group/other-writable (e.g. drwxrwxrwx), or
• a symlink.

This most often happens when that directory was created earlier with permissive permissions or the wrong owner.

Fix

1) Check which temp dir is failing

id -u
ls -ld /tmp/openclaw /tmp/openclaw-$(id -u) 2>/dev/null || true

2) Make the fallback dir secure (recommended: chmod 700)

If the directory exists, fix ownership + permissions:

sudo chown -R "$(id -u)":"$(id -g)" "/tmp/openclaw-$(id -u)"
sudo chmod 700 "/tmp/openclaw-$(id -u)"

If you don’t need the contents, you can also remove it and let OpenClaw recreate it safely:

sudo rm -rf "/tmp/openclaw-$(id -u)"

3) Restart OpenClaw

openclaw gateway restart

Verify

• openclaw tui starts without the temp dir error.
• openclaw gateway status --probe --deep reports healthy (or at least no temp-dir-related crash on startup).

Related

• Linux install guide: /getting-started/linux