Openclaw Network Diagnostics

Standalone advanced network diagnostics for OpenClaw to continuously test end-to-end connectivity from OpenClaw agent to Telegram Bot API and approximate delivery to a personal Telegram client. Use when investigating latency spikes, packet loss, DPI/throttling/blocking suspicion, DNS instability, TLS/TCP issues, route changes, MTU shifts, retry/timeout behavior, or Telegram rate-limits with structured rotating JSON logs.

Overview

Run a pure network diagnostic worker from CLI to continuously monitor connectivity between:

1. OpenClaw runtime host
2. Telegram Bot API (api.telegram.org)
3. Personal Telegram client approximation via delivery verification cycles

Keep diagnostics isolated from OpenClaw LLM flow:

• Use no LLM calls.
• Consume no AI tokens.
• Run in independent async worker loops.

Skill Files

• scripts/netdiag.py: standalone CLI worker (run/start/stop/status/validate-config)
• references/config.example.json: complete example configuration
• references/example-log-entries.jsonl: sample structured JSON logs
• references/openclaw-integration.md: integration patterns with pros/cons
• references/ai-log-analysis.md: workflow for later AI-based log analysis

Prerequisites

Install and verify:

1. Python 3.11+
2. macOS networking tools: dig, ping, traceroute
3. Telegram bot token and personal chat id

Install

From skill root:

bash

cd /Users/ivanbelugin/Documents/Connection\ Monitoring\ System/openclaw-network-diagnostics
python3 scripts/netdiag.py validate-config --config references/config.example.json

Create a real config file from the example and set real credentials:

bash

cp references/config.example.json config.json

Then edit config.json:

• telegram.bot_token
• telegram.personal_chat_id

Run Model

Foreground mode (manual stop via Ctrl+C)

bash

python3 scripts/netdiag.py run --config config.json --pid-file ./logs/netdiag.pid

Behavior:

• Start manually from CLI.
• Run continuously until manual stop.
• Print JSON summary to stdout on stop.
• Save summary to logging.summary_file_path.

Background mode (non-blocking service)

bash

python3 scripts/netdiag.py start --config config.json --pid-file ./logs/netdiag.pid
python3 scripts/netdiag.py status --pid-file ./logs/netdiag.pid
python3 scripts/netdiag.py stop --pid-file ./logs/netdiag.pid

Use this mode to avoid blocking OpenClaw main thread.

Monitoring Behavior

Every intervals_sec.ping (default 30s) perform active cycle:

1. Resolve DNS with TTL snapshot (system + public resolvers).
2. Send Bot API probe (getMe) and measure round-trip latency.
3. Run delivery verification cycle (sendMessage + selected ack mode).
4. Run packet-loss probe (ping) and log packet loss indicators.
5. Update outage/recovery and anomaly counters.

Additional periodic diagnostics:

• Traceroute (intervals_sec.traceroute)
• MTU discovery via DF ping binary search (intervals_sec.mtu_test)
• DNS re-resolution (intervals_sec.dns_reresolve)

Delivery Verification Modes

Set delivery_verification.mode:

1. bot_api_ack (default)

• Confirm only Bot API acceptance (sendMessage success).
• Lowest overhead.
• Does not prove handset render/read.

2. user_reply_ack

• Wait for user reply via getUpdates.
• Better approximation of “message reached client and user interacted”.
• Requires manual interaction.

3. callback_ack

• Send inline button and wait callback query.
• Structured acknowledgement event.
• Requires button tap.

Read confirmation note:

• Telegram Bot API does not expose direct read receipts for bot messages.
• user_reply_ack/callback_ack are practical approximations.

Default Tuning (Recommended)

• timeouts_ms.connect: 4000
• timeouts_ms.request: 10000
• retry.max_retries: 2
• retry.backoff_base_ms: 500
• diagnostics.latency_anomaly_threshold_ms: 1200

Rationale:

• Catch transient failures without hiding persistent outages.
• Limit retry storm risk during throttling/rate-limit events.

Logging Model

Write JSON lines to rotating files with total budget cap.

Required fields are present in every record:

• millisecond UTC timestamp
• source/destination ip + ports
• dns result snapshot (with TTL)
• tls metadata (version, cipher, handshake duration, session reuse heuristic)
• http request/response headers and status
• payload bytes sent/received
• round-trip latency
• tcp state
• retries/timeouts/socket errors
• packet-loss indicator (when probe executed)
• connection reset flag
• rate-limit metadata
• exception stacktrace

Log rotation:

• per-file size: logging.max_file_size_mb
• total cap: logging.max_total_size_mb (set 500 for your requirement)

Sensitive data handling:

• enable/disable redaction via logging.redact_sensitive_fields

OpenClaw Integration Options

Option A: External process (recommended)

Use start/stop/status commands from OpenClaw task hooks.

Pros:

• Strong isolation from OpenClaw runtime
• Non-blocking by design
• Independent restart and fault boundaries

Cons:

• Requires pid-file lifecycle

Option B: In-process task

Import and run the worker inside OpenClaw loop.

Pros:

• Single-process deployment

Cons:

• Faults can impact OpenClaw main runtime
• Weaker isolation for network-heavy diagnostics

Use Option A by default for production monitoring.

Stop and Summary

On manual stop (SIGINT/SIGTERM) the worker:

1. Flushes final metrics
2. Prints summary JSON to stdout
3. Saves summary JSON to logging.summary_file_path

Summary fields:

• total runtime
• total pings
• failed pings
• average latency
• max latency
• connection drops
• dns changes detected
• mtu changes detected
• anomaly count

Analyze Logs Later with AI Tools

Use references/ai-log-analysis.md.

Recommended flow:

1. Slice incident window from logs/netdiag.jsonl
2. Compute quick counters locally
3. Feed focused window + summary into ChatGPT Codex with structured prompts
4. Ask for timeline, root-cause segmentation, anomaly clusters, and config recommendations