What's the proper way to auto start a vm?

Question

Hello all,
I was wondering, there are different ways to start a VM, what's the best (will not be deprecated in some time):

1. Start/Stop VMs v2 (no further development): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-functions/start-stop-vms/overview#overview
2. The Automation Account way with a Runbook: https://medium.com/@erwan.letort/automatically-stop-and-start-your-azure-vm-part-1-automation-and-runbook-8e15ec1116bf
3. in the Azure/Virtual Machines/VM_Name/Automation/Task/Start Virtual Machine learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/create-automation-tasks-azure-resources
   Does it work with an Azure Automation account, or also without one. Currently Contributor for the subscription, but automated task fails:

{  "error": {    "code": "AuthenticationFailed",    "message": "Authentication failed. The 'Authorization' header is missing."  }}

What ways do you use to auto-start VMs?

Answer 1

Good morning Alexander_redacted_

In my experience and based on current best practices, using an Automation Account (or Logic Apps if you want a low-code alternative) is the most future-proof method.

Avoid: The “Start/Stop VMs v2” solution—as it is not under active development, its longevity is not guaranteed.

Authentication: Runbooks running in an Automation Account generally use either a Run As account or a Managed Identity to authenticate with Azure Resource Manager (ARM). If your API calls are failing with an error like:

{  "error": { "code": "AuthenticationFailed", "message": "Authentication failed. The 'Authorization' header is missing."  }}

It means that your runbook (or task) isn’t injecting a valid token in the Authorization header. This usually happens if:

• You aren’t using a managed identity or “Run As” account.
• The code making the REST call isn’t properly requesting an access token from Azure AD.

Source links

1- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/

2- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/infrastructure-automation you can learn here and play with automatization

3- https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/logic-apps/create-automation-tasks-azure-resources

I hope this help you out

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