How to Start or Stop Azure VM using PowerShell

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, and it has quickly become one of the top choices for businesses looking for a reliable IT infrastructure without having to spend too much money on their own hardware. This blog post will provide instructions on how to Start or Stop an Azure Virtual Machine using PowerShell.

This post will cover how to shut down an Azure virtual machine using PowerShell.

Connect to Microsoft Azure PowerShell

First, you need connect to Microsoft Azure PowerShell, there’re two ways to run PowerShell commands in Microsoft Azure:

Method 1: From Azure PowerShell modules installed in a computer.

Method 2: From Azure Cloud Shell using browsers.

Get running status of Azure virtual machine

Run command Get-AzVM -status to get PowerState of all vms.

Get-AzVM -Status                                                    

ResourceGroupName   Name Location       VmSize  OsType        NIC Provisioning Zone PowerState MaintenanceAllowed
-----------------   ---- --------       ------  ------        --- ------------ ---- ---------- ------------------
EASTUS-RG         vm-001   eastus Standard_B2s Windows vm-001-NIC    Succeeded      VM stopped

Start or shutdown Azure VMs

To start a Microsoft Azure VM, use the following command with the name of the resource group and the name of the VM.

Start-AzVM -Name 'vm-001' -ResourceGroupName 'eastus-rg'                

OperationId : f59561ba-53db-4941-b11e-d7e87c278ffd
Status      : Succeeded
StartTime   : 8/10/2022 3:21:25 PM
EndTime     : 8/10/2022 3:21:36 PM
Error       :

To stop a Microsoft Azure VM, use the following command with the name of the resource group and the name of the VM.

Note Note: The StayProvisioned parameter on Stop-AzureVM, this is necessary if you want to keep the current IP address of your VM. Without this, you'd lose the IP address and risk obtaining a new one. Depending on your situation this may or may not be necessary.

Stop-AzVM -Name 'vm-001' -ResourceGroupName 'eastus-rg' -StayProvisioned

Virtual machine stopping operation
This cmdlet will stop the specified virtual machine. Do you want to continue?
[Y] Yes  [N] No  [S] Suspend  [?] Help (default is "Y"): y

OperationId : 2c20aecd-955d-47ba-b184-e67288a4fc94
Status      : Succeeded
StartTime   : 8/10/2022 3:23:26 PM
EndTime     : 8/10/2022 3:24:00 PM
Error       :

Get-AzVM -Name 'vm-001' -ResourceGroupName 'eastus-rg' -status

ResourceGroupName       : eastus-rg
Name                    : vm-001
ComputerName            : vm-001
OsName                  : Windows 10 Pro
OsVersion               : 10.0.19043.1889
HyperVGeneration        : V1
Disks[0]                : 
  Name                  : vm-001-OS
  Statuses[0]           : 
    Code                : ProvisioningState/succeeded
    Level               : Info
    DisplayStatus       : Provisioning succeeded
    Time                : 8/10/2022 3:11:22 PM
Extensions[0]           : 
  Name                  : BGInfo
  Type                  : Microsoft.Compute.BGInfo
  TypeHandlerVersion    : 2.2.2
  Statuses[0]           : 
    Code                : ProvisioningState/succeeded
    Level               : Info
    DisplayStatus       : Provisioning succeeded
    Message             : Plugin enabled (handler name: Microsoft.Compute.BGInfo, extension name: , version: 2.2.2).
VMAgent                 : 
  VmAgentVersion        : 2.7.41491.1057
  ExtensionHandlers[0]  : 
    Type                : Microsoft.Compute.BGInfo
    TypeHandlerVersion  : 2.2.2
    Status              : 
      Code              : ProvisioningState/succeeded
      Level             : Info
      DisplayStatus     : Ready
      Message           : Plugin enabled (handler name: Microsoft.Compute.BGInfo, extension name: , version: 2.2.2).
  Statuses[0]           : 
    Code                : ProvisioningState/succeeded
    Level               : Info
    DisplayStatus       : Ready
    Message             : GuestAgent is running and processing the extensions.
    Time                : 8/10/2022 3:14:10 PM
Statuses[0]             : 
  Code                  : ProvisioningState/succeeded
  Level                 : Info
  DisplayStatus         : Provisioning succeeded
  Time                  : 8/10/2022 3:14:53 PM
Statuses[1]             : 
  Code                  : PowerState/stopped
  Level                 : Info
  DisplayStatus         : VM stopped