NemoClaw + Telegram: Fresh install on existing OpenClaw host — multiple 403 proxy blocks due to missing `node` in policy binaries

[95256155o]

NemoClaw + Telegram: Fresh install on existing OpenClaw host — multiple 403 proxy blocks

Environment

• Host: Dell laptop (Ubuntu), previously running OpenClaw services
• Sandbox: OpenShell jl-assistant, OpenClaw 2026.3.11 (29dc654)
• NemoClaw: 0.1.0 (installed via /opt/nemoclaw)
• Inference: NVIDIA Cloud API (nvidia/nemotron-3-super-120b-a12b) via inference.local
• Channel: Telegram plugin (@openclaw/telegram)
• Proxy: OpenShell sandbox proxy at 10.200.0.1:3128 (TLS termination + binary-path allowlisting)

Summary

After setting up NemoClaw on an existing OpenClaw host, Telegram integration failed with persistent Network request for 'deleteWebhook' failed! errors. The inference endpoint also silently hung (bot shows "typing" forever).

Root cause: The sandbox proxy allowlists outbound traffic by binary path, but openclaw is a Node.js script (#!/usr/bin/env node shebang). The actual binary is /usr/local/bin/node, not /usr/local/bin/openclaw. The default sandbox policy was missing /usr/local/bin/node from the relevant network policy binaries lists.

Two compounding issues had to be fixed:

1. Telegram policy had NO binaries section at all — every other policy (nvidia, claude_code, github, etc.) had one, but telegram was missing it entirely. The proxy blocked all binaries from reaching api.telegram.org.

2. NVIDIA policy binaries only listed openclaw and claude — since the gateway runs as node (PID shows /usr/local/bin/node via /proc/<pid>/exe), inference calls to inference.local were also blocked with 403.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Set up NemoClaw on OpenShell sandbox with NVIDIA API
2. Enable Telegram plugin: openclaw channels add telegram
3. Start gateway: openclaw gateway run
4. Send message to bot → deleteWebhook fails, or bot shows "typing" forever

Diagnosis

Confirming the proxy is the blocker

# Inside sandbox — curl uses /usr/bin/curl, not in any policy's binaries list
curl -sv https://api.telegram.org/bot<TOKEN>/getMe
# → HTTP 403 Forbidden (from proxy at 10.200.0.1:3128)

# Check what binary the gateway actually runs as
readlink /proc/<gateway-pid>/exe
# → /usr/local/bin/node    (NOT /usr/local/bin/openclaw!)

Inspecting the default policy

# On the host (not inside sandbox)
openshell sandbox get <sandbox-name>

The telegram network policy section had endpoints and rules but no binaries list:

# BROKEN — missing binaries section
telegram:
  name: telegram
  endpoints:
  - host: api.telegram.org
    port: 443
    protocol: rest
    tls: terminate
    enforcement: enforce
    rules:
    - allow:
        method: GET
        path: /bot*/**
    - allow:
        method: POST
        path: /bot*/**
  # ← no binaries! proxy blocks everything

Compare with nvidia policy which had binaries but was missing node:

nvidia:
  binaries:
  - path: /usr/local/bin/claude
  - path: /usr/local/bin/openclaw
  # ← missing /usr/local/bin/node — the actual binary that runs

Fix

Export the current policy, add node to the relevant binaries lists, and re-apply:

1. Add binaries to telegram policy

telegram:
  name: telegram
  endpoints:
  - host: api.telegram.org
    port: 443
    protocol: rest
    tls: terminate
    enforcement: enforce
    rules:
    - allow:
        method: GET
        path: /bot*/**
    - allow:
        method: POST
        path: /bot*/**
  binaries:                              # ← ADD THIS
  - path: /usr/local/bin/openclaw
  - path: /usr/local/bin/node

2. Add node to nvidia policy binaries

nvidia:
  binaries:
  - path: /usr/local/bin/claude
  - path: /usr/local/bin/openclaw
  - path: /usr/local/bin/node            # ← ADD THIS

3. Set NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS

The proxy does TLS termination using /etc/openshell-tls/openshell-ca.pem. Node.js needs to trust this CA:

# Inside sandbox — add to ~/.bashrc for persistence
export NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/etc/openshell-tls/openshell-ca.pem

4. Apply and restart

# On host
openshell policy set <sandbox-name> -g <gateway-name> --policy fixed-policy.yaml --wait

# Inside sandbox
kill <gateway-pid>
NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS=/etc/openshell-tls/openshell-ca.pem openclaw gateway run

5. Pair your Telegram user

After the first message, the bot responds with a pairing code:

openclaw pairing approve telegram <CODE>

Related Issues

• applyTelegramNetworkWorkarounds overwrites proxy-aware undici dispatcher, breaking LLM requests and Telegram API calls through HTTP proxy openclaw/openclaw#30338 — Telegram plugin setGlobalDispatcher overwrites proxy-aware undici dispatcher (may compound this issue)
• Bug: Telegram plugin setGlobalDispatcher breaks Anthropic API calls (HTTP 403) openclaw/openclaw#29510 — Same root cause from different angle
• [Bug] inference.local returns HTTP 403 inside sandbox when using Ollama local inference on DGX Spark #314 — inference.local returns 403 inside sandbox (same proxy mechanism)

Suggestion

The default NemoClaw sandbox policy template should:

1. Include a binaries section in the telegram policy (currently missing entirely)
2. Include /usr/local/bin/node in all policy binaries lists where openclaw is listed, since openclaw resolves to node at runtime via shebang
3. Consider documenting the NODE_EXTRA_CA_CERTS requirement for TLS-terminating proxies

This would save users from hitting silent 403 failures that are difficult to diagnose (no error in gateway logs for the inference hang — just "typing" forever).

---

Diagnosed and fixed by @95256155o with assistance from Claude Opus 4.6 (Anthropic).

[wscurran]

Thanks for reporting this issue with NemoClaw and Telegram, I appreciate you providing detailed information about the problem, including the specific error and your environment setup.

[rishabh19sachan]

pgx-b3@thinkstationpgx-0e42:/rishabh$ export TELEGRAM_BOT_TOKEN=
pgx-b3@thinkstationpgx-0e42:/rishabh$ export NVIDIA_API_KEY=
pgx-b3@thinkstationpgx-0e42:~/rishabh$ nemoclaw start Telegram
[services] telegram-bridge started (PID 1855680)
[services] cloudflared not found — no public URL. Install: brev-setup.sh or manually.

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ NemoClaw Services │
│ │
│ Telegram: bridge running │
│ │
│ Run 'openshell term' to monitor egress approvals │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

pgx-b3@thinkstationpgx-0e42:~/rishabh$ nemoclaw status Telegram

Sandboxes:
ai *

● telegram-bridge (stopped)
● cloudflared (stopped)

in term i can see the policy changes as well but bridge is stopped