Renaming an Azure Windows VM (Managed Disks)

In Azure, the renaming of resources (such as a VM) isn’t allowed.  That is, you can rename the OS/FQDN name of the VM at any time, but the display name in Azure is locked in at creation time.  If this bugs you, vote up the feature request here: https://feedback.azure.com/forums/216843-virtual-machines/suggestions/6132055-rename-vm

In the meantime, by tweaking a Microsoft provided script we can easily rename a VM by deleting the VM object (keeping all disks, NICs, IPs, etc.) and then recreating the VM using those existing objects.  The whole process should take ~10min (although it will vary based on the number of disks and NICs attached).

The below PowerShell script will work as-is for Windows VMs using managed disks and can easily be tweaked to run with Linux VMs or those using storage accounts.

# Nicole Welch, 10 January 2019

# Rename existing Windows VM in Azure Portal (resource name)

# Based on /en-us/azure/virtual-machines/windows/change-availability-set

Add-AzureRmAccount

# Set variables
$resourceGroup = "Demo"
$oldvmName = "myVM"
$newvmName = "newVM"

# Get the details of the VM to be renamed
$originalVM = Get-AzureRmVM `
-ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
-Name $oldvmName

# Remove the original VM
Remove-AzureRmVM -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup -Name $oldvmName   

# Create the basic configuration for the replacement VM
$newVM = New-AzureRmVMConfig -VMName $newvmName -VMSize $originalVM.HardwareProfile.VmSize

    Set-AzureRmVMOSDisk -VM $newVM -CreateOption Attach -ManagedDiskId $originalVM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.ManagedDisk.Id -Name $originalVM.StorageProfile.OsDisk.Name -Windows

# Add Data Disks
foreach ($disk in $originalVM.StorageProfile.DataDisks) {
Add-AzureRmVMDataDisk -VM $newVM `
-Name $disk.Name `
-ManagedDiskId $disk.ManagedDisk.Id `
-Caching $disk.Caching `
-Lun $disk.Lun `
-DiskSizeInGB $disk.DiskSizeGB `
-CreateOption Attach
}

# Add NIC(s)
foreach ($nic in $originalVM.NetworkProfile.NetworkInterfaces) {
Add-AzureRmVMNetworkInterface `
-VM $newVM `
-Id $nic.Id
}

# Recreate the VM
New-AzureRmVM `
-ResourceGroupName $resourceGroup `
-Location $originalVM.Location `
-VM $newVM `
-DisableBginfoExtension

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 15, 2019
  This is one the old option we are using to rename the VM, delete the VM and using os disk create new VM with New name. Is there any option available like AWS to rename the VM without deleting it?
  • Anonymous
    January 15, 2019
    As far as I know (and per the feedback link), this is still the only option.
• Anonymous
  April 02, 2019
  The comment has been removed