Auto-stop your Dev Boxes on schedule

To save on costs, you can enable an Auto-stop schedule on a dev box pool. Microsoft Dev Box will attempt to shut down all dev boxes in that pool at the time specified in the schedule. You can configure one stop time in one timezone for each pool.

Permissions

To manage a dev box schedule, you need the following permissions:

Action	Permission required
Configure a schedule	Owner, Contributor, or DevCenter Project Admin.

Manage an auto-stop schedule in the Azure portal

You can enable, modify, and disable auto-stop schedules using the Azure portal.

Create an auto-stop schedule

You can create an auto-stop schedule while creating a new dev box pool, or by modifying an already existing dev box pool. The following steps show you how to use the Azure portal to create and configure an auto-stop schedule.

Add an auto-stop schedule to an existing pool

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. In the search box, type Projects and then select Projects from the list.

   

3. Open the project associated with the pool you want to edit.

   

4. Select the pool you wish to modify, and then select edit. You might need to scroll to locate edit.

   

5. In Enable Auto-stop, select Yes.

   Name	Value
   Enable Auto-stop	Select Yes to enable an Auto-stop schedule after the pool has been created.
   Stop time	Select a time to shutdown all the dev boxes in the pool. All Dev Boxes in this pool shutdown at this time every day.
   Time zone	Select the time zone that the stop time is in.

   

6. Select Save.

Add an Auto-stop schedule as you create a pool

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. In the search box, type Projects and then select Projects from the list.

   

3. Open the project with which you want to associate the new dev box pool.

   

4. Select Dev box pools and then select + Create.

   

5. On the Create a dev box pool page, enter the following values:

   Name	Value
   Name	Enter a name for the pool. The pool name is visible to developers to select when they're creating dev boxes, and must be unique within a project.
   Dev box definition	Select an existing dev box definition. The definition determines the base image and size for the dev boxes created within this pool.
   Network connection	Select an existing network connection. The network connection determines the region of the dev boxes created within this pool.
   Dev Box Creator Privileges	Select Local Administrator or Standard User.
   Enable Auto-stop	Yes is the default. Select No to disable an Auto-stop schedule. You can configure an Auto-stop schedule after the pool has been created.
   Stop time	Select a time to shutdown all the dev boxes in the pool. All Dev Boxes in this pool shutdown at this time every day.
   Time zone	Select the time zone that the stop time is in.
   Licensing	Select this check box to confirm that your organization has Azure Hybrid Benefit licenses that you want to apply to the dev boxes in this pool.

   

6. Select Add.

7. Verify that the new dev box pool appears in the list. You may need to refresh the screen.

Delete an auto-stop schedule

To delete an auto-stop schedule, first navigate to your pool:

1. Sign in to the Azure portal.

2. In the search box, type Projects and then select Projects from the list.

   

3. Open the project associated with the pool you want to edit.

   

4. Select the pool you wish to modify, and then select edit. You might need to scroll to locate edit.

   

5. In Enable Auto-stop, select No.

   

6. Select Save. Dev boxes in this pool won't automatically shut down.

Manage an auto-stop schedule at the CLI

You can also manage auto-stop schedules using Azure CLI.

Create an auto-stop schedule

az devcenter admin schedule create -n default --pool {poolName} --project {projectName} --time 23:15 --time-zone "America/Los_Angeles" --schedule-type stopdevbox --frequency daily --state enabled

Parameter	Description
poolName	Name of your pool
project	Name of your Project
time	Local time when Dev Boxes should be shut down
time-zone	Standard timezone string to determine local time

Delete an auto-stop schedule

az devcenter admin schedule delete -n default --pool {poolName} --project {projectName}

Parameter	Description
poolName	Name of your pool
project	Name of your Project

Next steps

• Manage a dev box definition
• Manage a dev box using the developer portal