Servers

Adding, updating, cloning, and removing the OpenClaw servers that EXMER controls.

What a server is

A server in EXMER means "a remote Linux box that EXMER can SSH into and where OpenClaw may or may not be installed". Each server record stores connection info (host, port, username, encrypted password or private key), metadata (tags, display name), and a flag for whether OpenClaw is present.

Adding a server

From the Dashboard, tap + Add. Required fields:

• Name — any human-readable label.
• Host — IP or hostname.
• Port — SSH port (default 22).
• Username — usually root, but any user with sudo works.
• Auth type — password or private key.

On save, EXMER runs a connection test and automatically detects whether OpenClaw is already installed on the server. If yes, it's immediately manageable. If no, you'll see a prompt to run the install wizard.

Credential storage

Passwords and private keys are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before hitting the database. The encryption key is derived from JWT_SECRET via scrypt, so rotating JWT_SECRET without re-encrypting will make existing credentials unreadable. The server objects returned by the API never include the plaintext password or key — those fields are always stripped.

Testing the connection

On the Server page, tap Test connection. EXMER runs echo OK && which openclaw && openclaw --version over SSH and reports success/failure plus whether OpenClaw is detected. This is a cheap read-only check — use it any time you want to verify the SSH creds are still valid.

Updating a server

Owner and admin roles can edit the server's name, host, port, tags, and auth. Edits are recorded in the audit log.

Deleting a server

Only the owner (or a super-admin) can delete a server. Deletion removes the server record, all access grants, and all alerts for that server from EXMER's database. It does not touch the remote machine — OpenClaw keeps running, and anything it wrote is untouched. If you want to wipe OpenClaw too, SSH in and do it manually.

Tags

Each server can have a list of tags (e.g. production, clients, staging). Tags are used for filtering in the dashboard when you have many servers.

Multiple users per server

See Access control. In short: the creator becomes the owner. Owners can invite other users as admins (full mutation rights) or viewers (read only).