Browser Setup (No-Root Linux)

Install headless Google Chrome for OpenClaw's browser tool on Linux without root access.

When to Use

• browser start fails with "No supported browser found"
• Chrome starts but pages crash ("Page crashed", "Target page closed")
• Running on a cloud container, VPS, or sandboxed environment without sudo

Quick Start

bash scripts/install-browser.sh

The script downloads Chrome, extracts ~40 shared library packages, installs Liberation fonts, creates a wrapper script, and verifies the installation. Takes ~2 minutes.

Then configure OpenClaw:

openclaw config set browser.executablePath "$HOME/local-libs/chrome-wrapper.sh"
openclaw config set browser.headless true
openclaw config set browser.noSandbox true
openclaw config set browser.attachOnly true

Set the CDP port for the openclaw profile (edit ~/data/openclaw.json or equivalent config):

{
  "browser": {
    "executablePath": "~/local-libs/chrome-wrapper.sh",
    "headless": true,
    "noSandbox": true,
    "attachOnly": true,
    "profiles": {
      "openclaw": { "cdpPort": 18800, "color": "#FF4500" }
    }
  }
}

Critical: attachOnly Must Be true

OpenClaw has two internal paths for browser operations:

• CDP path (start/stop/tabs): communicates directly with Chrome's CDP port
• Playwright path (navigate/snapshot/act): uses playwright-core bundled with OpenClaw

When attachOnly: false, Playwright calls launchOpenClawChrome() which checks ensurePortAvailable(cdpPort). Since Chrome is already listening on that port, it throws PortInUseError on every navigate/snapshot/act call.

When attachOnly: true, Playwright uses connectOverCDP() to attach to the running Chrome instance. No port conflict.

Always set attachOnly: true when using a wrapper script or manually-started Chrome.

Usage Flow

Starting Chrome

Chrome must be started before OpenClaw can use it. Start it manually:

~/local-libs/chrome-wrapper.sh \
  --headless=new --no-sandbox --disable-gpu --disable-dev-shm-usage \
  --remote-debugging-port=18800 \
  --user-data-dir=~/data/browser/openclaw/user-data \
  --no-first-run --disable-setuid-sandbox \
  about:blank &

Or let OpenClaw start it (if attachOnly: false — but this causes PortInUseError on Playwright operations, so not recommended).

Browser Tool Flow

browser start (profile=openclaw)   → detects running Chrome via CDP
browser navigate (targetUrl)       → Playwright connectOverCDP → loads page
browser snapshot                   → accessibility tree (structured page data)
browser screenshot                 → PNG capture
browser act (ref=e12, kind=click)  → interact via ref from snapshot

Common Issues

Missing Shared Libraries

Symptom: error while loading shared libraries: libXXX.so: cannot open shared object file

Fix: The install script handles this. If new libraries are missing after a Chrome update, check with:

LD_LIBRARY_PATH=~/local-libs/lib ldd ~/chrome-install/opt/google/chrome/chrome | grep "not found"

Then apt-get download \x3Cpackage>, extract with dpkg-deb -x, copy .so files to ~/local-libs/lib/.

Page Crashed

Symptom: page.goto: Page crashed or Target page, context or browser has been closed

Cause: Missing fonts. Chrome's renderer crashes when no fonts are available.

Fix: Install fonts (the script does this). Verify ~/.fonts/ has .ttf files and ~/.config/fontconfig/fonts.conf exists. The wrapper script must export FONTCONFIG_FILE.

PortInUseError

Symptom: PortInUseError: Port 18800 is already in use

Cause: attachOnly is false — Playwright tries to launch a new Chrome on the same port.

Fix: Set browser.attachOnly: true in OpenClaw config.

CDP Timeout / Backlog

Symptom: browser start succeeds but subsequent calls timeout.

Cause: Failed Playwright connections accumulate in Chrome's TCP listen backlog (CLOSE-WAIT state), blocking new connections.

Fix: Kill Chrome (pkill -9 -f chrome), wait a few seconds, restart cleanly.

Small /dev/shm

Symptom: Renderer crashes on complex pages in containers.

Cause: Default container /dev/shm is 64MB, too small for Chrome.

Fix: --disable-dev-shm-usage flag (included in the wrapper). For Docker, also add --shm-size=256m to the container.

What the Install Script Does

1. Downloads Google Chrome stable .deb from Google
2. Extracts Chrome binary to ~/chrome-install/ using dpkg-deb -x (no root needed)
3. Identifies missing shared libraries via ldd
4. Downloads ~40 library .deb packages via apt-get download (no root needed)
5. Extracts all .so files to ~/local-libs/lib/
6. Downloads fonts-liberation and installs .ttf files to ~/.fonts/
7. Creates fontconfig config mapping sans-serif/serif/monospace → Liberation fonts
8. Creates ~/local-libs/chrome-wrapper.sh that sets LD_LIBRARY_PATH + FONTCONFIG_FILE
9. Verifies Chrome can start and report its version

Package List Reference

Libraries downloaded (Ubuntu/Debian names, may vary by distro):

libglib2.0, libnss3, libnspr4, libatk1.0, libatk-bridge2.0, libcups2, libdrm2, libxkbcommon0, libxcomposite1, libxdamage1, libxfixes3, libxrandr2, libgbm1, libasound2, libatspi2.0, libdbus-1-3, libxcb1, libx11-6, libxext6, libcairo2, libpango-1.0, libpangocairo-1.0, libffi8, libpcre2-8-0, libxau6, libxdmcp6, libxi6, libxrender1, libpng16-16, libfontconfig1, libfreetype6, libxcb-render0, libxcb-shm0, libpixman-1-0, libfribidi0, libthai0, libharfbuzz0b, libavahi-common3, libavahi-client3, libdatrie1, libgraphite2-3