Is there a way to open and shutdown a VM out of Azure? Like on a third party app?

Question

Hello! Iam a new azure user and wanted to ask, is there a way to stop, restart or start an Azure VM outside of Azure itself?
So if I make another website for myself so I can start on stop my vm from there, is it possible to do? If it is how?

Thank you!

Answer 1

You may use Azure CLI to access VMs outside of the portal. Need a Service principal with the role of Virtual Machine Contributor.

Answer 2

Managing VMs outside the portal
Traditionally, you would use the portal, PowerShell, or the CLI to manage your VMs. Security and authorization is handled by the required sign in with each of these approaches and you can use default roles or custom roles to grant permission to control your VMs. The CLI can be run from Azure Cloud Shell and that would be a great option for managing your VMs from any location.

Emanuele Bartolesi has a great guide for starting, stopping, and resetting a VM using basic CLI commands in a format that's easy for those new to Azure to follow along with:
https://dev.to/expertsinside/start-restart-and-stop-azure-vm-from-azure-cli-41n9

johnsterrett.com has a good explanation of how to create minimal permissions for a VM in a custom role if you wanted other users to be able to manage VMs:
https://johnsterrett.com/2020/02/04/allow-users-to-start-stop-azure-vms/

Other options for managing your VMs
There are other options you can look into however you would want to be very careful how you implement this. Security vulnerabilities in your website means that your VMs could be run without your knowledge and that could result in significant additional costs.

A webhook to a runbook could be used:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/automation/automation-webhooks

You can also look at the REST API:
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/compute/virtual-machines

Additional Reading:

• Daniel's Tech Blog: Start and stop Azure VMs without access to Microsoft Azure
• Microsoft Learn: Windows VM Management
• Microsoft Learn: Azure CLI reference

Answer 3

Here are the simple steps to enable you to start, stop, connect Windows machines through RDP using PowerShell and Azure CLI You need to install AZ one time which enables you to connect the VM through PowerShell Install AZ from the link :installazurecliwindows

After the installation is completed, you may follow the steps each time when you wanted to start, connect, stop the vm 1. Start the VM: Run the following command from PowerShell in administrator mode

 az vm start -g "Your resource group name" -n "Your VM name"

1. Connect the VM: Run the following command from PowerShell in administrator mode Get-AzRemoteDesktopFile -ResourceGroupName "Your resource group name" -Name "Your VM name" -Launch
2. Stop the VM: Run the following command from PowerShell in administrator mode az vm stop -g "Your resource group name" -n "Your VM name"