overthinkos/openclaw-desktop

openclaw-desktop

The all-in-one workstation box: a browser-accessible Wayland streaming desktop that also runs the OpenClaw gateway + its full tool/skill stack, a CPU Ollama inference server, and the complete charly toolchain — all as uid 1000 user with no --privileged and no added capabilities. Open https://localhost:3000, get a labwc desktop with Chrome, and from a terminal inside it you can charly box build, run nested rootless pods, launch rootless libvirt VMs, drive the OpenClaw gateway on :18789, and hit a local Ollama on :11434.

Definition

openclaw-desktop:
  base: cachyos.cachyos        # Arch-derived, pacman/AUR, x86_64_v3 (via the `cachyos` import namespace)
  build: [pac, aur]            # required — selkies' chrome (AUR google-chrome) + wl-tools (AUR wlrctl)
  candy:
    - agent-forwarding
    - selkies-desktop          # full streaming desktop stack
    - openclaw-full            # gateway + 27 tools incl. claude-code/codex/gemini
    - ollama                   # CPU ollama (GPU-agnostic layer)
    - charly                       # the full toolchain: charly binary + virtualization + gocryptfs + socat
    - container-nesting        # nested rootless podman/buildah/skopeo
    - golang
    - gh
    - dbus
    - charly
  port:
    - "3000:3000"              # Selkies web UI (Traefik HTTPS)
    - "9222:9222"              # Chrome DevTools Protocol (cdp-proxy)
    - "9224:9224"              # chrome-devtools-mcp (Streamable HTTP)
    - "2222:2222"              # sshd-wrapper
    - "18789:18789"            # OpenClaw gateway
    - "11434:11434"            # Ollama API
  platform: [linux/amd64]

No uid:/gid:/user:/network: override — inherits 1000/1000/user and the default charly bridge network. Rootless is the whole design.

Base — CachyOS, CPU

base: cachyos.cachyos (/charly-distros:cachyos, reached via the cachyos import namespace) is the Arch-derived x86_64_v3 base. The box is CPU-only — there is no nvidia/cuda candy. Ollama auto-detects the absence of a GPU and runs CPU inference; selkies streams via the CPU x264 encoder. build: [pac, aur] is mandatory (not inherited): selkies' chrome candy compiles google-chrome from AUR and wl-tools builds wlrctl; inheriting cachyos's bare [pac] would gate out the AUR builder and silently drop the browser. The aur → arch-builder builder map comes from the cachyos base.

Resolved security posture (OCI label)

| Field | Value | |---|---| | cap_add | (empty) | | security_opt | [unmask=/proc/*] (from /charly-distros:container-nesting) | | devices | [/dev/fuse, /dev/net/tun] (from /charly-distros:container-nesting) | | shm_size | 1g (from /charly-selkies:chrome) | | memory_max | 6g (from /charly-selkies:chrome) | | privileged | false | | Network | default charly bridge (NOT host) | | UID / user | 1000 / user |

No --privileged. No cap_add: ALL. No seccomp=unconfined. No label=disable. The only security relaxation is unmask=/proc/* — surgical, documented in /charly-distros:container-nesting with the full kernel-level RCA.

The four fused stacks

| Stack | Candies | What it gives you | |---|---|---| | Streaming desktop | selkies-desktop (chrome, chrome-cdp, labwc, waybar, pipewire, swaync, pavucontrol, wl-tools, selkies, sshd, …) | labwc Wayland desktop streamed over HTTPS:3000; Chrome + CDP:9222 + chrome-devtools-mcp:9224; sshd:2222 | | OpenClaw + tools | openclaw-full (openclaw gateway + claude-code, codex, gemini + 24 more tools) | AI gateway on :18789; claude / codex / gemini CLIs at ${HOME}/.npm-global/bin/; playwright now drives the desktop's real Chrome (synergy) | | LLM inference | ollama | CPU Ollama API on :11434; ollama host alias; models volume at ~/.ollama | | Nested charly toolchain | charly + container-nesting + golang + gh | charly box build, nested rootless podman/buildah/skopeo, rootless libvirt VMs, gocryptfs encrypted volumes, socat relays |

Browser synergy: openclaw-full ships playwright but deliberately omits a system browser (it's normally headless). Fusing it with selkies-desktop's chrome + chrome-cdp stack gives playwright a real browser + CDP on :9222 — a pure enhancement, no conflict.

Ports

| Port | Service | |---|---| | 3000 | Selkies web UI (Traefik HTTPS, self-signed) | | 9222 | Chrome DevTools Protocol (via cdp-proxy) | | 9224 | chrome-devtools-mcp (Streamable HTTP) | | 2222 | sshd-wrapper (supervisord-managed) | | 18789 | OpenClaw gateway + Control UI | | 11434 | Ollama API |

All six are distinct — no collisions. For multi-instance deployments alongside a running selkies/openclaw instance holding these host ports, remap via charly config openclaw-desktop -p 3010:3000 -p 9232:9222 -p 9242:9224 -p 2232:2222 -p 18790:18789 -p 11444:11434.

Quick Start

charly box build openclaw-desktop
charly config openclaw-desktop
charly start openclaw-desktop
# Desktop:  https://localhost:3000 (accept the self-signed cert)
# Gateway:  http://localhost:18789
# Ollama:   curl http://localhost:11434/api/tags
charly shell openclaw-desktop -c "ollama pull llama3"

Nested rootless podman — how it works here

See /charly-distros:container-nesting for the full kernel-level RCA. The short version: podman's rootless outer container injects linux.maskedPaths; the kernel's mount_too_revealing() then refuses any fresh /proc mount from the inner container. unmask=/proc/* tells podman not to emit those masks on the outer, so the inner /proc mount has nothing to mismatch with. Verified:

charly shell openclaw-desktop -c 'podman run --rm quay.io/libpod/alpine:latest /bin/true'
# zero extra caps, uid 1000

Nested rootless VMs — how it works here

See /charly-infrastructure:virtualization. virtqemud --timeout 0 + virtnetworkd --timeout 0 run as supervisord programs at uid 1000; libvirt qemu:///session keys off $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR and needs no CAP_SYS_ADMIN — only /dev/kvm passthrough.

charly shell openclaw-desktop -c 'virsh -c qemu:///session list --all'

Two-level nested-virtualization (end-to-end charly vm run-through)

The full charly vm build/create/ssh/stop/destroy lifecycle completes inside the rootless pod, two levels of KVM nesting deep:

1. Host (rootless podman, uid 1000) runs charly-openclaw-desktop.
2. Inside it, charly vm build <bootc-image> --transport containers-storage auto-falls back to engine.rootful=machine (no host sudo in reach), which spawns a podman-machine VM (nested VM #1) via KVM passthrough and runs bootc install to-disk.
3. charly vm create <bootc-image> -i smoke --ssh-key generate boots the produced qcow2 as a QEMU user-net VM (nested VM #2).
4. charly vm ssh <bootc-image> -i smoke -- uname -a returns the guest kernel.
5. charly vm destroy --disk cleans up.

No --privileged, no cap_add, no seccomp relaxations beyond the baked [unmask=/proc/*]. Only /dev/kvm passthrough.

Cross-storage loading for private bootc images

The podman-machine in step 2 has its own rootful storage, separate from the outer container's nested rootless store. Load a private bootc image via the host:

# on host
podman save -o /tmp/bootc.tar ghcr.io/<registry>/<image>:latest
charly cp openclaw-desktop /tmp/bootc.tar :/tmp/bootc.tar
# inside the pod
podman load -i /tmp/bootc.tar                              # nested rootless store
podman --connection charly-root load -i /tmp/bootc.tar         # podman-machine rootful store
charly vm build <image> --transport containers-storage

Docker Hub rate-limit note

For nested test harnesses, prefer quay.io/libpod/alpine:latest (unmetered) over docker.io/library/alpine — the baked nested-podman-run check already uses this mirror.

What works from inside the desktop

Every charly verb family runs as uid 1000 inside the container sandbox: charly box build/generate/validate/merge/inspect/list/pull, charly check box/live/wl/libvirt (cdp/vnc/mcp/record/kube/adb/appium/spice/dbus are declarative out-of-process verbs), charly config/deploy/start/stop/update/remove/shell/cmd/service/status/logs, charly vm list/create/start/stop/ssh/destroy (rootless libvirt session), charly doctor/secrets/settings/alias. The charly candy bakes only the binary — for build-mode verbs that read charly.yml, mount or charly cp the project in.

Volumes

• chrome-data → ~/.chrome-debug (Chrome profile, from the chrome candy)
• selkies-config → ~/.config/selkies
• models → ~/.ollama (Ollama model storage)

Verification

charly status openclaw-desktop                       # all services RUNNING
curl -k https://localhost:3000                   # selkies HTTPS 200
curl -s http://localhost:18789                   # openclaw gateway
curl -s http://localhost:11434/api/tags          # ollama API
charly shell openclaw-desktop -c 'podman run --rm quay.io/libpod/alpine:latest /bin/true'

A desktop screenshot is captured by a wl: screenshot step, run with charly check live openclaw-desktop --filter wl.

The baked box-level check: carries the nested-rootless posture checks (subuid two-ranges, newuidmap cap, policy.json, containers.conf userns=host, _CONTAINERS_USERNS_CONFIGURED + BUILDAH_ISOLATION env), the deploy-scope nested-toolchain checks (nested podman run, virsh session list, in-container charly version/charly doctor), and the three fused services' liveness (gateway, ollama API, chrome-devtools-mcp port). The R10 bed is check-openclaw-desktop-pod (charly check run check-openclaw-desktop-pod).

Key Candies

• /charly-selkies:selkies-desktop-layer — the streaming desktop metalayer
• /charly-openclaw:openclaw-full — gateway + 27 tools (claude-code/codex/gemini)
• /charly-ollama:ollama — CPU/GPU-agnostic Ollama candy (GPU is box-level)
• /charly-tools:charly — the full toolchain: charly binary + virtualization + gocryptfs + socat
• /charly-distros:container-nesting — rootless nested podman recipe (RCA for unmask=/proc/*)
• /charly-infrastructure:virtualization — supervisord-managed virtqemud/virtnetworkd
• /charly-distros:agent-forwarding — GPG/SSH/direnv agent sockets

Related Boxes

• /charly-openclaw:openclaw-full — the headless gateway + tools WITHOUT the desktop / ollama / charly toolchain.
• /charly-openclaw:openclaw — minimal gateway only.
• /charly-selkies:selkies-labwc — the CPU streaming desktop WITHOUT openclaw / ollama / charly toolchain.
• /charly-selkies:selkies-labwc-nvidia — GPU streaming desktop (base nvidia), no openclaw/ollama/charly toolchain.
• /charly-distros:charly-fedora / /charly-coder:charly-arch — root-mode charly toolchain WITHOUT a streaming desktop.

When to Use This Skill

MUST be invoked when the task involves:

• Building, deploying, or troubleshooting the openclaw-desktop box.
• Running charly verbs (image build, nested pods, rootless VMs) from inside a streaming desktop.
• The OpenClaw gateway, AI CLIs, or a CPU Ollama running alongside a Wayland streaming desktop in one box.
• The non---privileged rootless-in-rootless nesting path on a CachyOS desktop.

Related

• /charly-image:image — image family umbrella (candy: image entries with base:/from:, build/validate/inspect/list)
• /charly-check:check — declarative testing + the check-openclaw-desktop-pod R10 bed
• /charly-check:cdp, /charly-check:wl — desktop automation on this box
• /charly-core:charly-config — deploy setup (tunnel, port remapping, multi-instance, encrypted volumes)