OpenClaw WhatsApp Mihomo Proxy Setup | Generated by AI

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Question: How do I make OpenClaw’s WhatsApp channel work in China using a Mihomo proxy on port 7890?

Answer:

Root Cause

WhatsApp is blocked in mainland China, and while Telegram already supports proxy configuration via channels.telegram.proxy, WhatsApp currently does not have a native proxy option in OpenClaw. This is a known open feature request.

The status=408 Request Time-out WebSocket Error you see is because the Baileys WebSocket connection to WhatsApp Web servers is blocked — even though curl via your system http_proxy env vars works fine, setting environment variables like http_proxy does not guarantee that Node.js apps will use them — when an application uses its own explicit proxy config, it bypasses the system proxy tunnel entirely. Always test at the application layer.

Current Workaround Options

Option 1: Verify Mihomo is Actually Listening

First, confirm what ports are actually open:

for port in 1080 1087 1086 7890 7891 8080 8118 10808 10809; do
  nc -zv 127.0.0.1 $port 2>&1 | grep -v refused
done

Mihomo (like ClashX, Clash Verge, or Mihomo Party) exposes a local SOCKS5 port (default: 7891) and an HTTP proxy port (default: 7890), which is exactly what OpenClaw expects.

Option 2: Use ALL_PROXY / GLOBAL_AGENT_HTTP_PROXY for Node.js

Standard http_proxy env vars are often ignored by Node.js WebSocket libraries. Try forcing a global proxy for Node.js before launching:

export ALL_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7890
export GLOBAL_AGENT_HTTP_PROXY=http://127.0.0.1:7890
openclaw channels login --channel whatsapp

Or with SOCKS5 (port 7891 in Mihomo):

export ALL_PROXY=socks5://127.0.0.1:7891
openclaw channels login --channel whatsapp

Option 3: Use proxychains to Force All Traffic Through Proxy

Install and configure proxychains-ng:

sudo apt install proxychains4

# Edit /etc/proxychains4.conf
# Change the last line to:
socks5  127.0.0.1  7891
# or http:
http    127.0.0.1  7890

Then run:

proxychains4 openclaw channels login --channel whatsapp

This forces all TCP connections from OpenClaw (including WebSocket) through your Mihomo proxy.

Option 4: Set Mihomo to “TUN Mode” (Global Proxy)

In Mihomo/Clash Verge, enable TUN Mode (also called “System Proxy” or “Global Mode”). This routes all traffic at the OS network level, so Node.js WebSockets are also proxied without any app-level configuration.

Long-Term Fix (Pending)

A feature request has been filed to add a channels.whatsapp.proxy config option, similar to how Telegram proxy already works. The proposed solution is to pass a ProxyAgent from undici to the Baileys makeWASocket function via the fetchAgent option. Once this is merged, you’ll be able to simply run:

openclaw config set channels.whatsapp.proxy "http://127.0.0.1:7890"

Until then, TUN mode or proxychains are the most reliable workarounds.

Also: Fix the Duplicate Plugin Warning

Your nextcloud-talk plugin warning is unrelated to the connection issue, but you can fix it by removing the bundled conflict — either delete the custom extension or explicitly set it in your config:

openclaw config set plugins.allow '["nextcloud-talk", "openclaw-weixin"]'

This suppresses the auto-load warning and makes your plugin list explicit.

References:

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