Manage VMs on Azure Stack HCI using Windows PowerShell
Applies to: Azure Stack HCI, versions 23H2 and 22H2; Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019
Windows PowerShell can be used to create and manage your virtual machines (VMs) on Azure Stack HCI.
Note
The recommended way to create and manage VMs on Azure Stack HCI 23H2 is using the Azure Arc control plane. However, since the functionality described in this article is not yet provided by Azure Arc, you can use Windows Admin Center or PowerShell as described below.
Typically, you manage VMs from a remote computer, rather than on a host server in a cluster. This remote computer is called the management computer.
Note
When running PowerShell commands from a management computer, include the -ComputerName parameter with the name of the host server you are managing. NetBIOS names, IP addresses, and fully qualified domain names are allowable.
For the complete reference documentation for managing VMs using PowerShell, see Hyper-V reference.
Create a VM
The New-VM cmdlet is used to create a new VM. For detailed usage, see the New-VM reference documentation.
Here are the settings that you can specify when creating a new VM with an existing virtual hard disk, where:
-Name is the name that you provide for the virtual machine that you're creating.
-MemoryStartupBytes is the amount of memory that is available to the virtual machine at start up.
-BootDevice is the device that the virtual machine boots to when it starts. Typically this is a virtual hard disk (VHD), an .iso file for DVD-based boot, or a network adapter (NetworkAdapter) for network boot.
-VHDPath is the path to the virtual machine disk that you want to use.
-Path is the path to store the virtual machine configuration files.
-Generation is the virtual machine generation. Use generation 1 for VHD and generation 2 for VHDX.
-SwitchName is the name of the virtual switch that you want the virtual machine to use to connect to other virtual machines or the network. Get the name of the virtual switch by using Get-VMSwitch. For example:
The full command as follows for creating a VM called VM1:
New-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -MemoryStartupBytes <Memory> -BootDevice <BootDevice> -VHDPath <VHDPath> -Path <Path> -Generation <Generation> -SwitchName <Switch name>
The next example creates a Generation 2 virtual machine with 4GB of memory. It boots from the folder VMs\Win10.vhdx in the current directory and uses the virtual switch named ExternalSwitch. The virtual machine configuration files are stored in the folder VMData.
New-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB -BootDevice VHD -VHDPath .\VMs\Win10.vhdx -Path .\VMData -Generation 2 -SwitchName ExternalSwitch
The following parameters are used to specify virtual hard disks.
To create a virtual machine with a new virtual hard disk, replace the -VHDPath parameter from the example above with -NewVHDPath and add the -NewVHDSizeBytes parameter as shown here:
New-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -MemoryStartupBytes 4GB -BootDevice VHD -NewVHDPath .\VMs\Win10.vhdx -Path .\VMData -NewVHDSizeBytes 20GB -Generation 2 -SwitchName ExternalSwitch
To create a virtual machine with a new virtual disk that boots to an operating system image, see the PowerShell example in Create virtual machine walkthrough for Hyper-V on Windows 10.
Get a list of VMs
The following example returns a list of all VMs on Server1.
Get-VM -ComputerName Server1
The following example returns a list of all running VMs on a server by adding a filter using the Where-Object command. For more information, see Using the Where-Object documentation.
Get-VM -ComputerName Server1 | Where-Object -Property State -eq "Running"
The next example returns a list of all shut-down VMs on the server.
Get-VM -ComputerName Server1 | Where-Object -Property State -eq "Off"
Start and stop a VM
Use the Start-VM and Stop-VM commands to start or stop a VM. For detailed information, see the Start-VM and Stop-VM reference documentation.
The following example shows how to start a VM named VM1:
Start-VM -Name VM1 -ComputerName Server1
The following example shows how to shut-down a VM named TestVM:
Stop-VM -Name VM1 -ComputerName Server1
Move a VM
The Move-VM cmdlet moves a VM to a different server. For more information, see the Move-VM reference documentation.
The following example shows how to move a VM to Server2 when the VM is stored on an SMB share on Server1:
Move-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -DestinationHost Server2
The following example shows how to move a VM to Server2 from Server1 and move all files associated with the VM to D:\VM_name on the remote computer:
Move-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -DestinationHost Server2 -IncludeStorage -DestinationStoragePath D:\VM_name
Import or export a VM
The Import-VM and Export-VM cmdlets import and export a VM. The following shows a couple of examples. For more information, see the Import-VM and Export-VM reference documentation.
The following example shows how to import a VM from its configuration file. The VM is registered in-place, so its files are not copied:
Import-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -Path 'C:\<vm export path>\2B91FEB3-F1E0-4FFF-B8BE-29CED892A95A.vmcx'
The following example exports a VM to the root of the D drive:
Export-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -Path D:\
Rename a VM
The Rename-VM cmdlet is used to rename a VM. For detailed information, see the Rename-VM reference documentation.
The following example renames VM1 to VM2 and displays the renamed virtual machine:
Rename-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -NewName VM2
Create a VM checkpoint
The Checkpoint-VM cmdlet is used to create a checkpoint for a VM. For detailed information, see the Checkpoint-VM reference documentation.
The following example creates a checkpoint named BeforeInstallingUpdates for the VM named Test.
Checkpoint-VM -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -SnapshotName BeforeInstallingUpdates
Create a VHD for a VM
The New-VHD cmdlet is used to create a new VHD for a VM. For detailed information on how to use it, see the New-VHD reference documentation.
The following example creates a dynamic virtual hard disk in VHDX format that is 10 GB in size. The file name extension determines the format and the default type of dynamic is used because no type is specified.
Get-ClusterGroup
Add a network adapter to a VM
The Add-VMNetworkAdapter cmdlet is used to add a virtual network adapter to a VM. The following shows a couple of examples. For detailed information on how to use it, see the Add-VMNetworkAdapter reference documentation.
The following example adds a virtual network adapter named Redmond NIC1 to a virtual machine named VM1:
Add-VMNetworkAdapter -ComputerName Server1 -VMName VM1 -Name "Redmond NIC1"
This example adds a virtual network adapter to a virtual machine named VM1 and connects it to a virtual switch named Network:
Add-VMNetworkAdapter -ComputerName Server1 -VMName VM1 -SwitchName Network
Create a virtual switch for a VM
The New-VMSwitch cmdlet is used to new virtual switch on a VM host. For detailed information on how to use it, see the New-VMSwitch reference documentation.
The following example creates a new switch called "QoS switch", which binds to a network adapter called Wired Ethernet Connection 3 and supports weight-based minimum bandwidth.
New-VMSwitch "QoS Switch" -NetAdapterName "Wired Ethernet Connection 3" -MinimumBandwidthMode Weight
Set memory for a VM
The Set-VMMemory cmdlet is used to configure the memory a VM. For detailed information on how to use it, see the Set-VMMemory reference documentation.
The following example enables dynamic memory on a VM named VM1, sets its minimum, startup, and maximum memory, its memory priority, and its buffer.
Set-VMMemory -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -DynamicMemoryEnabled $true -MinimumBytes 64MB -StartupBytes 256MB -MaximumBytes 2GB -Priority 80 -Buffer 25
Set virtual processors for a VM
The Set-VMProcessor cmdlet is used to configure the virtual processors for a VM. For detailed information on how to use it, see the Set-VMProcessor reference documentation.
The following example configures a VM named VM1 with two virtual processors, a reserve of 10%, a limit of 75%, and a relative weight of 200.
Set-VMProcessor -ComputerName Server1 -Name VM1 -Count 2 -Reserve 10 -Maximum 75 -RelativeWeight 200
Remove a VM
To remove or delete a VM and it's resources, first find them using the following cmdlet:
Get-ClusterGroup
Then, run the following cmdlet for each VM you wish to remove from the cluster:
Remove-ClusterGroup -RemoveResources -Name VM1
Next steps
You can also create and manage VMs using Windows Admin Center. For more information, see Windows Admin Center.
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