Setup Guide

OpenClaw Personal Assistant

Complete guide to provisioning your VPS on SumoPod and creating a Telegram bot for integration.

2

Sections

22

Steps

~12 min

Completion

System Overview

Architecture

Interactive graph showing how OPENCLAW connects to VPS, Telegram, and LLM (Kimi K2.5).

OPENCLAW VPS Telegram LLM (Kimi K2.5)

OpenClaw is an AI-powered personal assistant that runs on your own VPS. It connects to Telegram as its chat interface and uses Kimi K2.5 as its language model to understand and respond to your messages. Everything is self-hosted — you own your data and control the entire stack.

OPENCLAW

The core engine that orchestrates everything. It receives messages from Telegram, processes them through the LLM, manages conversation context, executes commands, and sends responses back. It runs as a service on your VPS.

VPS

Your Virtual Private Server hosted on SumoPod. It provides the compute environment where OpenClaw runs 24/7. Includes Docker for containerization, a database for storing conversations, and handles all hosting infrastructure.

The messaging interface for interacting with your assistant. OpenClaw connects via the Telegram Bot API using webhooks to receive messages in real-time and send responses back to your chat.

LLM (Kimi K2.5)

The AI brain behind OpenClaw. Kimi K2.5 handles natural language understanding, generates intelligent responses, and powers all the reasoning capabilities. OpenClaw sends prompts and context to the model and receives completions back.

Prerequisites

Tools Used

You will need these tools to complete the full setup.

Platform

SumoPod

sumopod.com

Cloud platform for deploying apps and provisioning VPS instances. Used to host your OpenClaw Personal Assistant.

✓ Official

BotFather

@BotFather

Telegram's official bot for creating and managing bot accounts. Used to create your bot and generate the API token.

Section 1 of 2 — Part 1

Account & Billing

Register on SumoPod and add credits to your account.

1

Go to SumoPod

Open your browser and navigate to the SumoPod website. Click Get Started to begin the registration process.

2

Create Your Account

We recommend using Sign up with Google for the fastest and easiest registration. Alternatively, you can fill in the form manually with your First Name, Last Name, Company Name, and Email address. Complete the Cloudflare verification and click Create Account.

3

Explore the Dashboard

After logging in, you'll land on the SumoPod dashboard. The Learn section contains video tutorials about OpenClaw and VPS setup that you can reference anytime.

4

Top Up Credits

Navigate to Billing in the left sidebar. Click the + Topup button. Enter the amount (e.g., 60000), select your currency (IDR), choose a payment method (QRIS), and click Top Up.

⚠️ Note SumoPod Credit is not real money and cannot be refunded or withdrawn once added to your account.

Section 1 of 2 — Part 2

Create VPS

Provision a Virtual Private Server on SumoPod with OpenClaw pre-installed.

5

Navigate to VPS

Go to Infrastructure → VPS in the left sidebar. You'll see the Virtual Private Servers page. Click Create VPS to start provisioning.

6

Configure Your VPS

On the Create VPS page, fill in:

• VPS Name — e.g., gh-vps
• Region — Choose closest (e.g., Jakarta)
• Operating System — Select OpenClaw
• Server Plan — Tencent 2 vCPU / 2 GB / 40 GB at Rp 60,000/month

7

Agree to Terms & Create

A VPS Creation Agreement modal will appear with Terms of Service and Important Notice. Complete the Cloudflare verification and click I Agree, Create VPS.

8

Wait for Provisioning

Your VPS will enter the provisioning state. This may take a few minutes. The page will automatically refresh when ready.

9

Get VPS Access Information

Once active, you'll see the VPS Access Information page with your Public IP, Private IP, Username (root), and Password.

🔒 Security Save your Public IP, Username, and Password in your notes — you'll need them later to connect via SSH. Keep these credentials private and never share them publicly.

Section 1 of 2 — Part 3

Connect & Verify

SSH into your VPS and verify OpenClaw is installed.

10

Open Terminal

Open a terminal application on your computer:

• macOS — Search for "Terminal" using Spotlight (Cmd + Space)
• Windows — Search for "cmd" or "Command Prompt" in the Start menu

11

SSH into Your VPS

Connect to your VPS using SSH. Enter your password when prompted.

ssh root@<your-public-ip>

12

Verify Installation

Confirm OpenClaw is installed correctly by checking the version.

openclaw --version

✅ Done Your SumoPod VPS is set up with OpenClaw. Next, create your Telegram bot.

Section 2 of 2 — Part 1

Open Telegram

Log in to Telegram Web or Desktop to get started.

1

Open Telegram

Open Telegram on your Web or Desktop app. Using a phone is not recommended for this setup.

Navigate to https://web.telegram.org/ and log in using one of the following methods:

• QR Code — Scan the QR code with your phone's Telegram app
• Phone Number — Enter your phone number and click Next

If logging in by phone number, enter the OTP code sent to your Telegram app to complete the login.

💡 Tip We recommend using Telegram Web or Desktop for a smoother setup experience.

Section 2 of 2 — Part 2

Create Bot

Create a new Telegram bot using BotFather and obtain your API token.

2

Open BotFather

Open Telegram and navigate to the @BotFather chat. You'll see the welcome screen with a Start button.

💡 Tip If this is your first time, search for @BotFather in the search bar (see next step).

3

Search for BotFather

Type @BotFather in the Telegram search bar. Select the one with the verified badge (blue checkmark).

⚠️ Warning Be careful of fake BotFather accounts. The real one has a blue verified checkmark.

4

Start BotFather

Click Start to begin interacting. BotFather will display a list of available commands.

5

Open the BotFather Mini App

Click the Open button at the bottom of the chat. You'll see your existing bots and a Create a New Bot button.

6

Fill in Bot Details & Create

Click Create a New Bot and fill in:

• Bot Name — Display name (e.g., "Sechel")
• About (Optional) — Short description
• Username — Must end in bot

The system will check if your username is available. If it shows a green "available" message, click Create Bot.

ℹ️ Note The username must be unique and end with "bot" (e.g., sechel_ai_bot).

7

Get Your Bot Token

BotFather will display your bot's detail page with the API Token and Copy / Revoke buttons.

🔒 Security Keep your token secure and never share it publicly. Anyone with your token can control your bot.

Section 2 of 2 — Part 3

Verify Bot

Search for your new bot and confirm it's live.

8

Search for Your New Bot

Search for your bot's username (e.g., @sechel_ai_bot) in the Telegram search bar.

9

Open Your Bot Chat

Open the bot chat. You'll see the bot's description. Click Start to activate the bot.

10

Bot is Live

After clicking Start, the /start command is sent automatically. Your bot is now active.

✅ Done Your bot is created and running. You're all set!