Fastclaw — OpenClaw/Linux VM for macOS

You're on a Mac and you want to use OpenClaw on isolated VM/Linux. You don't want to deal with virtual machines, disk images, SSH keys, Linux desktops, or package managers. Fastclaw does all of that for you — it creates a ready-to-use Linux VM with OpenClaw already installed and running. One command. No Linux experience required.

Installation

Requirements

• macOS 13 or later
• Apple Silicon (M1/M2/M3/M4) or Intel

Install - just one command

Open terminal and type :

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/RomanSurface/FastClaw/main/scripts/install.sh | bash

First install takes ~10 minutes. The script downloads a Debian VM, installs the graphical desktop and OpenClaw from scratch — be patient and let it finish.

A second window will open showing the VM booting. Don't touch it — it will configure itself and start automatically when ready.

That's it. The script installs everything you need, pulls the VM image, and launches OpenClaw.

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For Developers

This section is for developers who want to build Fastclaw from source or work on the codebase.

Build Requirements

• Tart: brew install cirruslabs/cli/tart
• Rust: curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
• libssh2: brew install libssh2

Build from Source

cargo build --release
./target/release/fastclaw --help

If the build fails on ssh2, add to ~/.cargo/config.toml:

[env]
PKG_CONFIG_PATH = "/opt/homebrew/opt/libssh2/lib/pkgconfig"

Commands

Command	Description
fastclaw up [--number N]	Create, launch and provision VM
fastclaw up --headless	Run VM without graphical window
fastclaw up --with-playwright	Also install Playwright + Chromium
fastclaw down <N>	Stop a running VM
fastclaw delete <N>	Stop and delete VM + local state
fastclaw shell <N>	Open SSH shell into VM
fastclaw ip <N>	Print VM IP address
fastclaw status [N]	Show status of one or all VMs
fastclaw image pull	Pull/refresh the base Debian 13 image

VM Details

Property	Value
OS	Debian 13 Trixie (arm64)
Desktop	XFCE4 + LightDM (autologin)
Browser	Firefox ESR
Node.js	22.x LTS
OpenClaw	latest (via npm)
SSH User	admin / admin

Architecture

fastclaw up
 ├── Pull Debian 13 base image (if needed)
 ├── tart clone → fastclaw-1
 ├── tart run → launch VM
 ├── Wait for VM IP
 └── SSH provisioning (first run only):
       ├── XFCE4 desktop + LightDM autologin
       ├── Firefox ESR + OpenClaw desktop shortcut
       ├── Node.js 22
       ├── OpenClaw (npm install -g)
       ├── fastclaw SSH key injection
       └── sync + reboot via SSH

Logs

• Host: ~/Library/Application Support/fastclaw/provision.log
• VM: /var/log/fastclaw-provision.log