| title | Uninstall NemoClaw | |||
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| sidebar-title | Uninstall NemoClaw | |||
| description | Remove NemoClaw while choosing whether to preserve host-side backups, registry state, OpenShell, and models. | |||
| description-agent | Explains the built-in and hosted uninstall workflows and the user data they preserve or remove. Use when uninstalling NemoClaw or cleaning host-side state. | |||
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Use the built-in uninstall command when the installed CLI is available.
$$nemoclaw uninstallFull uninstall does not remove a Docker container or image only because its name or image reference contains openclaw.
It preserves resources from a separate OpenClaw installation while continuing to remove NemoClaw and OpenShell Docker resources.
| Flag | Effect |
|---|---|
--yes |
Skip the confirmation prompt. |
--keep-openshell |
Leave OpenShell binaries, NemoClaw-managed gateway service files, and local gateway state in place, and do not stop the host gateway process. |
--delete-models |
Delete every model reported by the host's local Ollama inventory and all non-credential data in the current user's shared ~/.cache/huggingface/ cache after managed model runtimes stop. Hugging Face authentication files remain. |
--destroy-user-data |
Also remove preserved user data in rebuild-backups/, backups/, and sandboxes.json. |
--all-gateway-ports |
Uninstall every gateway port on the host instead of only the selected one. |
--gateway <name> |
Optional consistency check; must match the name derived from NEMOCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT. |
NEMOCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT selects the gateway instance to uninstall (nemoclaw for port 8080, or nemoclaw-<port> for a non-default port).
For example, NEMOCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT=9123 $$nemoclaw uninstall selects nemoclaw-9123 and its port-scoped state.
Do not use --gateway to select another instance; when supplied for compatibility, its value must match the derived name or uninstall stops before cleanup.
The --delete-models flag is an explicit opt-in for deleting host model files.
Run full uninstall with model deletion:
$$nemoclaw uninstall --delete-modelsNemoClaw stops and verifies its managed local and distributed model runtimes before it deletes non-credential data from the local Hugging Face cache.
It validates that ~/.cache/ and ~/.cache/huggingface/ are real, current-user-owned directories that are not symlinks or group- or world-writable.
It inventories Ollama before it deletes any Ollama model.
An Ollama inventory error, model deletion error, unsafe cache path, or cache-data deletion error makes uninstall exit nonzero.
Cleanup can partially complete before an error.
Resolve the reported error, inspect the remaining models and runtimes, and rerun uninstall.
Without --delete-models, uninstall preserves both model stores.
When sibling gateway environments remain, uninstall preserves both model stores even if you pass --delete-models.
An all-gateway-port sweep deletes them only after every selected gateway cleanup succeeds and no sibling environment remains.
The flag does not scan arbitrary directories or delete model caches on remote peers.
One uninstall removes one gateway port.
A host that onboarded under more than one NEMOCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT keeps the other ports bound after that uninstall, because each port is a separate environment with its own sandboxes, registry, and gateway.
When other ports remain, uninstall names them, prints the command that removes one of them, and prints the command that removes every port.
An environment whose port cannot be read is reported as unidentified, and the per-port command appears only when at least one port is known.
The report includes lines like these:
· gateway 'nemoclaw-9000' on port 9000
Remove one of them: NEMOCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT=9000 $$nemoclaw uninstall
Remove every gateway port: $$nemoclaw uninstall --all-gateway-ports
Pass --all-gateway-ports, or set NEMOCLAW_UNINSTALL_ALL_GATEWAY_PORTS=1, to uninstall all of them in one run:
$$nemoclaw uninstall --all-gateway-portsWhen the sweep finds more than one port, it lists the ports, confirms once, then uninstalls each port in turn and the currently selected port last.
When it finds only the selected port, it uses the standard uninstall confirmation and runs that port once.
Running the selected port last lets that final pass remove the shared CLI, services, images, providers, configuration, models, and swap once no other environment needs them.
--delete-models, --destroy-user-data, and --keep-openshell apply to every port in the sweep.
If the sweep cannot enumerate the gateway state roots safely, it exits before uninstalling any port.
The sweep cannot select an unidentified environment until its gateway port can be determined.
If one port fails to uninstall, the sweep reports that port, continues with the remaining ports, and exits nonzero.
The failed port still counts as a live environment, so the final pass keeps the shared host resources instead of removing state that the surviving environment needs.
The sweep does not roll back cleanup that completed before a failure.
Resolve the reported error, inspect the remaining gateways with openshell gateway list, and rerun the sweep or the reported per-port command.
Default-port uninstall removes NemoClaw-managed entries in openshell/gateway.env.
For a NemoClaw-managed authority, it also removes only NemoClaw's marked Linux gateway unit.
It preserves upstream Linux package units, the macOS Homebrew service, and unrelated environment entries.
Gateway-scoped cleanup removes that gateway's OpenShell resources first, then the marked Linux unit.
The OpenShell gateway service therefore keeps running while uninstall deletes the selected gateway's sandboxes.
If OpenShell resource cleanup fails, uninstall exits nonzero and preserves the marked Linux unit and gateway process.
If marked Linux unit cleanup fails, uninstall exits nonzero before it scans for or stops a remaining gateway process or continues with later Docker and gateway-state cleanup.
OpenShell resource and Linux unit cleanup can partially complete before either failure.
After selected sandbox cleanup succeeds, uninstall removes those entries from sandboxes.json before gateway registration and Linux unit cleanup.
If a later step fails, the retry skips the completed sandbox deletions and resumes the remaining cleanup.
Resolve the reported error.
Inspect the remaining gateways with openshell gateway list.
Rerun NEMOCLAW_GATEWAY_PORT=<port> $$nemoclaw uninstall with the gateway port from the failed uninstall.
For an externally supervised authority, uninstall preserves the local gateway state used by the running process in both full and gateway-scoped cleanup.
It also preserves the gateway process, supervisor resources, marked Linux unit, Docker resources, OpenShell binaries, and the declared external state directory.
A custom-port uninstall does not stop or remove the default gateway service or its environment file.
Uninstall does not stop an openshell-gateway process that another non-root user owns and that this installation did not record.
It names the owner and process ID, leaves that process running, and continues with the remaining cleanup.
If no other cleanup fails, uninstall exits with status 0 even though that process can keep its port in use.
Uninstall still tries to stop a root-owned process and the gateway process that this installation recorded.
If either stop fails, uninstall reports the process without printing a reusable privileged kill command.
Do not signal a PID from saved output.
Immediately before a privileged stop, verify that the live process owner and openshell-gateway command line match the exact gateway name and port.
Also prove that the PID file, runtime marker, and loaded sandbox namespace still match the selected state directory.
Rerun uninstall after the process stops.
A gateway-scoped uninstall and every --all-gateway-ports pass exit nonzero after that failure.
A single full uninstall reports the process and continues.
Before each sandbox deletion during scoped Docker cleanup, NemoClaw proves the selected configuration and running gateway identity again and passes the selected gateway name to OpenShell.
The configuration and running process must use the state-root-specific OpenShell sandbox namespace that NemoClaw generated.
For a NemoClaw-managed gateway, the live proof also binds the process owner, PID file, runtime marker, and command line to the exact gateway name and port.
For an externally supervised gateway, NemoClaw proves the configured state.
It binds the supervisor's current main process to its owner, loaded sandbox namespace, declared executable, selected gateway name, and selected port.
When NemoClaw can prove an owner-private, generated configuration and complete JWT bundle that predate state-root scoping, restart keeps the legacy gateway ID, JWT bundle, and Docker driver's default namespace.
That compatibility keeps the gateway able to find existing containers and keeps their non-expiring sandbox JWT issuer valid.
NemoClaw regenerates the other gateway settings from the current runtime configuration.
For a proven legacy Podman gateway, NemoClaw preserves the gateway ID that existing sandbox JWTs use; the supported Podman schema has no sandbox_namespace setting to preserve.
If the existing identity is ambiguous or unsafe, or durable gateway state remains without its configuration, restart fails closed without rewriting the configuration or JWT bundle.
Fresh state roots and already scoped configurations continue to use the state-root-specific identity.
The legacy default namespace is not isolated across gateways, so it cannot satisfy the scoped-uninstall proof while sibling gateways remain.
Scoped uninstall stops before it deletes a sandbox, registry row, or gateway registration and preserves the selected gateway's runtime evidence and local state.
Because the supported OpenShell Podman schema does not expose sandbox_namespace, scoped Podman uninstall fails closed before signaling and preserves the gateway runtime evidence and local state.
Full single-gateway Podman uninstall continues to use normal graceful teardown.
For Docker, if any proof is absent, uninstall exits nonzero before it signals the host gateway.
NemoClaw preserves the gateway runtime evidence and local state.
Keep that state intact.
For an already scoped gateway with stale runtime evidence, restore it through the supported install or onboarding recovery flow, verify the generated identity, and retry.
A proven legacy gateway is not silently converted by onboarding.
To retire one, first remove sibling gateways through their own proven scoped cleanup, verify that only the legacy gateway remains, and then use the full single-gateway uninstall path.
For an ambiguous or incomplete identity, stop the gateway and restore the exact generated openshell-gateway.toml and complete jwt/ directory from a dedicated host-level backup path, represented here as <gateway-identity-backup>.
The backup must have been captured from that gateway's exact state directory before the failure and kept under the owning user's exclusive access.
Keep the <gateway-identity-backup> directory and its nested jwt/ directory at mode 0700, and keep the configuration and JWT files at mode 0600.
The default gateway stores them under ~/.local/state/nemoclaw/openshell-docker-gateway/; a non-default gateway uses ~/.local/state/nemoclaw/openshell-docker-gateway-<port>/.
Restore them as the owning user.
Keep the gateway state root and its jwt/ directory at mode 0700, and do not grant group or other access to the configuration or JWT files.
NemoClaw does not reconstruct gateway identity from sandbox snapshots or backup-all; if no matching gateway-state backup exists, keep the state intact rather than attempting a scoped cleanup.
Verify every gateway with openshell gateway list.
Retain <gateway-identity-backup> only until that command reports the restored gateway and the affected existing sandboxes authenticate successfully.
Then remove that dedicated backup directory as the owning user and verify its absence by replacing the placeholder in test ! -e '<gateway-identity-backup>' with the full backup path.
If verification fails, keep the backup under the same access restrictions and stop.
Do not add sandbox_namespace manually to a live gateway configuration because the running process can still be using its previous namespace.
Interactive runs prompt before they remove the preserved entries, and the default answer keeps them.
For non-interactive runs using --yes, NEMOCLAW_NON_INTERACTIVE=1, or a non-TTY shell, pass --destroy-user-data or set NEMOCLAW_UNINSTALL_DESTROY_USER_DATA=1 to acknowledge data loss and remove the preserved entries.
--yes stays non-destructive by design and never purges preserved user data on its own.
After a successful or already-absent sandbox deletion, preserving other sandboxes.json entries does not preserve the selected sandbox entry or its gateway registration.
After uninstall confirms that no sibling gateways remain, it also removes the provider registrations and Docker image that the recorded sandboxes depend on.
Uninstall warns that those records cannot be recovered automatically on reinstall, and the remediation is $$nemoclaw <name> destroy followed by $$nemoclaw onboard.
The CLI command runs the version-pinned uninstall.sh that shipped with the installed CLI, so it does not fetch anything over the network at uninstall time.
If the CLI is missing or broken, use the hosted script:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/NemoClaw/refs/heads/main/uninstall.sh | bashThe same flags apply to the hosted script.
Pass them after bash -s --:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/NVIDIA/NemoClaw/refs/heads/main/uninstall.sh | bash -s -- --yes --delete-models- Host Files and State for the complete host-side file and preservation reference.
$$nemoclaw uninstallfor the full command contract and hosted-script comparison.- Create and Restore Snapshots before removing state you may need later.