Agent Estate Wiki

Restart Hermes

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tagsrunbook, hermes, restart

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Restart Hermes

Purpose

Restart the Hermes agent, gateway, dashboard, and browser helper processes cleanly.

Symptoms that match this runbook

  • Hermes stops responding in chat or WebUI
  • Tools fail mid-session but the agent is otherwise running
  • After an update or config change

Prerequisites

  • User account hermes with access to systemd —user
  • No active backups in progress
  • If using a browser session, warn the user before restarting dashboards

Procedure

1. Identify the active Hermes processes

ps aux | grep -E "hermes_cli.main (gateway|dashboard) run|hermes-webui/server.py|cua-driver serve|x11vnc.*5901" | grep -v grep

Expected active pieces on this install:

  • gateway: /home/hermes/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/python -m hermes_cli.main gateway run
  • dashboard: /home/hermes/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/python -m hermes_cli.main dashboard ...
  • webui: /home/hermes/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/python /home/hermes/hermes-webui/server.py
  • camofox/cua-driver: /home/hermes/.local/bin/cua-driver serve
  • x11vnc: -display :99 ... 5901

2. Restart the gateway

hermes gateway restart

3. Restart the dashboard if needed

hermes dashboard restart

If that fails, stop and rerun:

hermes dashboard stop
hermes dashboard --host 0.0.0.0 --port 9119 --no-open

4. Restart the browser helper if needed

pkill -f "cua-driver serve"
/home/hermes/.local/bin/cua-driver serve

5. Restart the WebUI if needed

Find its PID, then restart standalone:

pkill -f "hermes-webui/server.py"
/home/hermes/.hermes/hermes-agent/venv/bin/python /home/hermes/hermes-webui/server.py

Verification

hermes gateway status
hermes dashboard status
ss -tlnp | grep -E "8787|9119|5901|6081"
ps aux | grep -E "gateway run|dashboard|cua-driver serve|server.py" | grep -v grep

Current known-good ports after verified restart:

  • gateway: active via hermes-gateway.service
  • dashboard: 0.0.0.0:9119
  • webui: 0.0.0.0:8787
  • VNC: 5901
  • noVNC: 6081

Rollback

  • If restart fails, review recent config changes and consider restoring config.yaml.bak.*
  • Do not delete old config files without explicit confirmation
  • Re-run backup first if you plan to rollback config

Notes

  • Last tested: 2026-07-22 on debian 13, user-mode systemd
  • WebUI logs: /home/hermes/.hermes/webui/bootstrap-8787.log
  • Defunct <defunct> processes in process list are expected zombie shells from prior runs and do not require action unless they pile up

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