Deploy Hermes Agent in a Proxmox LXC with Community Scripts

A small, repeatable Hermes Agent deployment for a Proxmox VE container.

Before you start

Have the following ready:

• A Proxmox VE host with capacity for a new LXC container.
• A current backup or recovery plan for the host and any affected storage.
• Outbound HTTPS access from the host and the new container.
• A model-provider account or an approved OpenAI-compatible endpoint. Complete provider authentication only in Hermes’ interactive setup; do not put credentials in shell history or documentation.

The Community Scripts page currently lists a Debian 13 profile with 2 vCPUs, 4 GiB of RAM, and 20 GiB of disk. Treat these as installer defaults, not sizing guidance. Select the advanced installer flow when your workload needs different limits.

Create the container

1. In the Proxmox VE shell, review the installer source linked from the Community Scripts page.
2. Run the installer:

bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/community-scripts/ProxmoxVE/main/ct/hermesagent.sh)"

3. Follow the prompts to create the LXC, then start it.

The script creates a dedicated hermes service user. The container is a useful isolation boundary, but Hermes can execute commands inside it. Do not treat it as safe to expose directly to an untrusted network.

Configure Hermes

Open the LXC console and switch to the service user:

su - hermes
hermes setup

Use the setup wizard to select and authenticate a provider. Configure one working model first; defer gateways, messaging integrations, and other automation until a normal chat succeeds.

Verify the deployment

Still as the hermes user, run:

whoami
hermes --version
hermes doctor
hermes chat -q "Reply with exactly: Hermes is ready."

Expected results:

• whoami returns hermes.
• hermes --version prints an installed version.
• hermes doctor completes without a blocking configuration error.
• The chat command receives the requested response from the configured model.

If the chat test fails, run hermes model to review the selected provider and model, then repeat the test. Do not add a dashboard, gateway, or messaging channel until this baseline works.

Access the dashboard safely

The Community Scripts page documents a dashboard on the container’s loopback interface. Reach it through an SSH tunnel instead of publishing the dashboard port:

ssh -NL 9119:localhost:9119 <administrator>@<container-host>

Open http://localhost:9119 on the machine running the tunnel. Replace both placeholders with values appropriate to your environment. Keep the dashboard private unless you have separately designed and reviewed its authentication and network controls.

Troubleshooting

Sources

• Community Scripts: Hermes Agent
• Community Scripts Hermes Agent installer source
• Hermes Agent installation documentation
• Hermes Agent quickstart

Related reading

• How to Troubleshoot Linux Performance — Field Playbook for investigating container or host resource pressure.