Fix: EACCES permission denied — openclaw.json

OpenClaw writes config atomically via a .tmp file. If it can't create that temp file, you'll see EACCES: permission denied. The gateway exits without saving any state changes.

The Error

The UUID in the filename (.7.2ede223b-...) is a random temp suffix. The important part is that OpenClaw is trying and failing to write to ~/.openclaw/.

Fix A: Fix Ownership on Host (Docker — Most Common)

If you're running OpenClaw in Docker with a bind mount, the host directory is often owned by root. The container process runs as UID 1000 (the node user), which can't write to a root-owned directory.

On the host machine, run:

sudo chown -R 1000:1000 ~/.openclaw

Or if your openclaw data directory is elsewhere:

sudo chown -R 1000:1000 /path/to/your/openclaw-data

Fix B: Set User in Docker Compose

A cleaner long-term fix is to tell Docker Compose to run the container as the correct user. This way ownership doesn't matter as long as the UID matches:

services:
  openclaw:
    image: openclaw/openclaw:latest
    user: "1000:1000"
    volumes:
      - ~/.openclaw:/home/node/.openclaw

Then recreate the container:

docker compose down && docker compose up -d

Fix C: Bare Linux (Without Docker)

If you're running OpenClaw directly on Linux (not in Docker), the issue is usually that the config directory was created by a different user — often root during a sudo install.

ls -la ~/.openclaw/

If it shows root root ownership, fix it:

sudo chown -R $USER:$USER ~/.openclaw

Verify the Fix

Still Broken?

Check what user the gateway process is actually running as:

# Find the PID
ps aux | grep openclaw

# Check the UID of that process
ls -la /proc/<PID>/exe