Edit

Share via

Create a lab in Azure Lab Services using PowerShell and the Azure module

  • Article

Important

Azure Lab Services will be retired on June 28, 2027. For more information, see the retirement guide.

In this article, you learn how to create a lab using PowerShell and the Azure modules. The lab uses the settings from a previously created lab plan. For detailed overview of Azure Lab Services, see An introduction to Azure Lab Services.

Prerequisites

  • An Azure account with an active subscription. If you don't have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

Run Connect-AzAccount to sign in to Azure and verify an active subscription.

Create a lab

Before you can create a lab, you need the lab plan resource. In the create a lab plan by using PowerShell, you learn how to create a lab plan named ContosoLabPlan in a resource group named MyResourceGroup.

$plan = Get-AzLabServicesLabPlan `
    -Name "ContosoLabPlan" `
    -ResourceGroupName "MyResourceGroupName"

We also need to choose a base image for the lab VMs from the available images for the lab plan. Let's see what is available.

$plan | Get-AzLabServicesPlanImage | Where-Object { $_.EnabledState.ToString() -eq "enabled" }

We'll choose the Windows 11 image.

$image = $plan | Get-AzLabServicesPlanImage | Where-Object { $_.EnabledState.ToString() -eq "enabled" -and $_.DisplayName -eq "Windows 11 Pro (Gen2)" }

When you create a lab by using PowerShell, you also need to provide the resource SKU information. The following command uses the REST API to retrieve the list of SKUs and selects the Classic_Fsv2_4_8GB_128_S_SSD SKU:

$subscriptionId = (Get-AzContext).Subscription.ID
$skus = (Invoke-AzRestMethod -Uri https://management.azure.com/subscriptions/$subscriptionId/providers/Microsoft.LabServices/skus?api-version=2022-08-01 | Select-Object -Property "Content" -ExpandProperty Content | ConvertFrom-Json).value
$sku = $skus | Where-Object -Property "name" -eq "Classic_Fsv2_4_8GB_128_S_SSD" | select-object -First 1

We're now ready to create a lab based of our lab plan with the Window 11 Pro image and the Classic_Fsv2_4_8GB_128_S_SSD resource SKU. The following command will create a lab using the lab plan created above.

# $plan and $image are from the Create LabPlan QuickStart.
$password = "<custom password>"

$lab = New-AzLabServicesLab -Name "ContosoLab" `
    -ResourceGroupName "MyResourceGroup" `
    -Location "westus" `
    -LabPlanId $plan.Id `
    -AdminUserPassword (ConvertTo-SecureString $password -AsPlainText -Force) `
    -AdminUserUsername "adminUser" `
    `
    -AutoShutdownProfileShutdownOnDisconnect Enabled `
    -AutoShutdownProfileDisconnectDelay $(New-Timespan) `
    -AutoShutdownProfileShutdownOnIdle "LowUsage" `
    -AutoShutdownProfileIdleDelay $(New-TimeSpan -Minutes 15) `
    -AutoShutdownProfileShutdownWhenNotConnected Disabled `
    -AutoShutdownProfileNoConnectDelay $(New-TimeSpan -Minutes 15) `
    `
    -ConnectionProfileClientRdpAccess Public `
    -ConnectionProfileClientSshAccess None `
    -ConnectionProfileWebRdpAccess None `
    -ConnectionProfileWebSshAccess None `
    -SecurityProfileOpenAccess Disabled `
    `
    -ImageReferenceOffer $image.Offer `
    -ImageReferencePublisher $image.Publisher `
    -ImageReferenceSku $image.Sku `
    -ImageReferenceVersion $image.Version `
    -SkuCapacity 1 `
    -SkuName $sku.size `
    `
    -Title "Contoso Lab" `
    -Description "The Contoso lab" `
    -AdditionalCapabilityInstallGpuDriver Disabled `
    -VirtualMachineProfileCreateOption "TemplateVM" `
    -VirtualMachineProfileUseSharedPassword Enabled

Clean up resources

If you're not going to continue to use this application, delete the plan and lab with the following steps:

$lab | Remove-AzLabServicesLab

More information

As an admin, you can learn more about Azure PowerShell module and Az.LabServices cmdlets.