The previous approach used a /usr/bin/hermes shim to proxy commands from root
to the hermes user, and a hand-crafted system-level systemd unit for the
gateway. This worked for the default profile but broke down for named profiles:
- hermes profile create <name> generates an alias script in
~/.local/bin/<name> that calls hermes with -p <name>. These aliases live
in the hermes user's PATH, not root's, so root could not invoke them.
- Maintaining parity would require per-profile shims, a watcher daemon to
create/remove them, and system-unit mirrors for each profile gateway — all
of which would need to stay in sync with hermes internals across updates.
New approach — work with hermes, not around it:
- loginctl enable-linger hermes: ensures the hermes user's systemd session
starts at boot and persists without login. All user-unit gateways (default
and per-profile) now survive reboots automatically.
- Gateway service management delegated entirely to hermes: 'hermes gateway
install' / 'hermes setup' create and enable the user unit natively.
The install script no longer pre-installs the gateway; hermes prompts the
user to do so at the end of 'hermes setup'.
- hermes-dashboard.service remains a system unit (no native install command
exists for it). Its After= no longer references hermes-gateway.service
since there is no system-unit gateway to depend on.
- /usr/bin/hermes shim removed. Root is guided to 'su - hermes' via a two-
line /etc/profile.d/hermes-hint.sh message on login, with a one-liner to
make the switch automatic. Once logged in as hermes, all hermes commands,
profile aliases, and gateway management work natively.
- update_script simplified: only hermes-dashboard (our unit) is stopped and
restarted. hermes update --yes handles gateway service lifecycle itself.