Bug

openclaw gateway start crashes on a fresh Ubuntu 24.04 EC2 instance because systemctl --user is-enabled openclaw-gateway.service returns a non-zero exit code for both not-found and disabled states.

Environment

• OS: Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS (Noble Numbat) on EC2
• OpenClaw: 2026.3.2 (85377a2)
• Node: v22

Steps to Reproduce

1. Fresh Ubuntu 24.04 EC2 instance
2. Install OpenClaw via openclaw setup
3. Run openclaw gateway start

Error

Gateway service check failed: Error: systemctl is-enabled unavailable: Command failed: systemctl --user is-enabled openclaw-gateway.service

Root Cause

systemctl --user is-enabled returns:

• Exit code 1 for disabled
• Exit code 1 for not-found

The gateway start command treats any non-zero exit code as a hard failure instead of handling these expected states.

Workaround

Manually create and enable a stub service unit before running openclaw gateway start:

mkdir -p ~/.config/systemd/user
cat > ~/.config/systemd/user/openclaw-gateway.service << EOF
[Unit]
Description=OpenClaw Gateway
[Service]
ExecStart=/bin/true
Restart=no
[Install]
WantedBy=default.target
EOF
systemctl --user daemon-reload
systemctl --user enable openclaw-gateway.service
openclaw gateway start

Expected Behavior

openclaw gateway start (and setup) should handle not-found and disabled responses from systemctl is-enabled gracefully — these are normal states for a first-time install.