Red Hat engineer releases tool to secure OpenClaw agents

On Tuesday, Red Hat principal software engineer Sally O’Malley released Tank OS, a new open-source tool designed to simplify the deployment and management of OpenClaw AI agents. OpenClaw is an open-source project that installs an AI agent on a local computer. The new tool is specifically built for power users and IT professionals managing fleets of corporate OpenClaw agents, aiming to make these deployments safer and easier to maintain en masse.

O’Malley noted that while OpenClaw is a highly powerful application, it can be dangerous if not configured properly. Security concerns around the technology have grown following real-world incidents. For instance, a Meta AI security researcher reported that her Claw started deleting all of her work email, while another agent downloaded in plain text all of a user’s WhatsApp DMs. Additionally, there is a growing crop of malware aimed at OpenClaw users. To address these risks, Tank OS packages OpenClaw inside Podman—an open-source container tool, which is a software unit that packages code and dependencies. Podman runs in a rootless configuration, a security configuration for containers without elevated privileges, to isolate the agents from the underlying machine.

O’Malley, who is an OpenClaw maintainer working alongside project creator Peter Steinberger, focuses on making the project work better in enterprise use cases. Tank OS works by loading OpenClaw into a Podman container and making that container a bootable image—a file used to start an operating system or application—which runs the agent when the computer starts. This setup allows users to run multiple isolated instances of Tank OS on a single machine.

However, Tank OS is not intended for techno novices. According to Sally O’Malley, a Red Hat principal software engineer, “It’s not a tool that you can use easily unless you do have some sort of technical experience.” While other container-based implementations exist—such as NanoClaw, which uses container company Docker—Tank OS is designed to help corporate IT teams manage fleets of agents using the same container workflows they already use. O’Malley explained that her interest in OpenClaw is focused on how the technology will look when scaled out to millions of autonomous agents—AI systems capable of independent action—talking to one another.

Why it matters

As autonomous AI agents move from hobbyist projects to corporate infrastructure, tools like Tank OS are essential for IT teams to maintain security and control over these powerful, potentially volatile systems.