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Manage VMs on Azure Local using Windows PowerShell

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Applies to: Azure Local, versions 23H2 and 22H2; Windows Server 2022, Windows Server 2019

This article describes how to create and manage virtual machines (VMs) on Azure Local using Windows PowerShell.

Note

The recommended way to create and manage VMs on Azure Local, version 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. Note that VMs created this way aren't Arc-enabled VMs. They have limited manageability from the Azure Arc control plane and fewer Azure Hybrid Benefits, such as no free use of Azure Update Manager.

About managing VMs using PowerShell

Typically, you manage VMs from a remote computer, rather than on a host machine in Azure Local. This remote computer is called the management computer.

When running PowerShell commands from a management computer, include the -ComputerName parameter with the name of the host machine you're managing. NetBIOS names, IP addresses, and fully qualified domain names are allowable.

For complete reference documentation on 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 startup.

  • -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 machine 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 shutdown VMs on the machine.

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 machine. 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 aren't 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 VM:

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 about how to use it, see the New-VHD reference documentation.

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

Removal or deletion of a VM via PowerShell deletes the VM's configuration file but doesn't delete the associated virtual hard drives. If you want to delete a VM with all files, including virtual hard drives, consider using Windows Admin Center.

Before you delete a VM, make sure that the VM is OFF. Remember that deleting a VM deletes the configuration file irreversibly.

Remove a VM from a machine

To remove or delete a VM and its resources from a machine, first find all VMs on the machine using the following cmdlet:

Get-VM -Name VM1

Then, run the following cmdlet for each VM you wish to remove from the machine:

Remove-VM -Name VM1

Remove a VM from a system

To remove or delete a VM and its resources from a system, first find them using the following cmdlet:

Get-ClusterGroup

Then, run the following cmdlet for each VM you wish to remove from the system:

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.