How to stop and start Compute virtual machines

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How to stop and start VMs manually

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How to stop and start VMs automatically by using autohealing

1. Make sure you are in a group that has the admin role within your tenant or project; for example, the default admins group. You can check this in the Administration → IAM section of the web console.
2. Create a service account.
3. Add it to the default viewers group:
   • CLI

   1. Get the ID of the viewers group:
      nebius iam group get-by-name --name viewers \
        --parent-id <tenant_ID> \
        --format json | jq -r '.metadata.id'
      
      In the command, specify your Tenant ID.
   2. Get the ID of the service account:
      nebius iam service-account get-by-name \
        --name <service_account_name> \
        --format json | jq -r '.metadata.id'
      
   3. Add the service account to the viewers group:
      nebius iam group-membership create \
        --parent-id <viewers_group_ID> \
        --member-id <service_account_ID>
      
4. Create a VM. In its configuration, specify the following:
   • Settings that allow connections to this VM.
   • Created service account:
     nebius compute instance create \
       ... \
       --service-account-id <service_account_ID>
     
5. Connect to the VM.
6. Install jq on the VM:
   Ubuntu

   macOS

   sudo apt-get install jq
   

   brew install jq
   
7. Go to the /usr/local/bin/ directory:
   cd /usr/local/bin/
   
8. Create the vm_maintenance.sh file:
   sudo nano vm_maintenance.sh
   
9. Add the following Bash script to the file:
   #!/bin/bash
   
   INSTANCE_ID_FILE="/mnt/cloud-metadata/instance-id"
   CHECK_INTERVAL=600 # 10 minutes in seconds
   
   # Check if the Nebius AI Cloud CLI is installed
   check_nebius_installed() {
       if ! command -v nebius &> /dev/null; then
           echo "$(date) - Nebius utility not found, exiting..."
           exit 1
       fi
   }
   
   get_instance_id() {
       if [[ -f "$INSTANCE_ID_FILE" ]]; then
           cat "$INSTANCE_ID_FILE"
       else
           echo "File with the virtual machine ID is not found"
           exit 1
       fi
   }
   
   # Handle a maintenance event
   handle_maintenance_event() {
       # Add custom actions before stopping the virtual machine
       echo "$(date) - Custom actions before stopping the virtual machine"
       sudo shutdown -h +1 "Restarting virtual machine due to maintenance"
   }
   
   check_nebius_installed
   
   # main loop
   while true; do
       INSTANCE_ID=$(get_instance_id)
       if [[ -z "$INSTANCE_ID" ]]; then
           echo "Virtual machine ID is empty"
           exit 1
       fi
   
       RESPONSE=$(nebius compute instance get --id "$INSTANCE_ID" --format json)
       if echo "$RESPONSE" | jq -e '.status.maintenance_event_id' >/dev/null; then
           echo "$(date) - Maintenance event detected"
           handle_maintenance_event
       else
           echo "$(date) - No maintenance event detected"
       fi
   
       sleep "$CHECK_INTERVAL"
   done
   
10. Make the file executable:
    sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/vm_maintenance.sh
    
11. To make the script run continuously and restart it when the VM fails or reboots, add a systemd unit to the script:
    sudo bash -c 'cat > /etc/systemd/system/vm_maintenance.service << EOF
    [Unit]
    Description=VM Maintenance Event Handler
    After=network.target
    
    [Service]
    ExecStart=/usr/local/bin/vm_maintenance.sh
    Restart=always
    User=root
    Environment=PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin
    WorkingDirectory=/usr/local/bin
    StandardOutput=append:/var/log/vm_maintenance.log
    StandardError=append:/var/log/vm_maintenance.log
    
    [Install]
    WantedBy=multi-user.target
    EOF'
    
12. Start the service created with the systemd unit, and let it restart in case of the VM reboot:
    sudo systemctl daemon-reload
    sudo systemctl start vm_maintenance
    sudo systemctl enable vm_maintenance
    sudo systemctl status vm_maintenance
    
    The output example is the following:
    Created symlink /etc/systemd/system/multi-user.target.wants/vm_maintenance.service → /etc/systemd/system/vm_maintenance.service.
    ● vm_maintenance.service - VM Maintenance Event Handler
         Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/vm_maintenance.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
         Active: active (running) since Fri 2025-04-25 10:19:19 UTC; 214ms ago
       Main PID: 28530 (vm_maintenance.)
          Tasks: 6 (limit: 19056)
         Memory: 24.3M
            CPU: 25ms
         CGroup: /system.slice/vm_maintenance.service
                 ├─28530 /bin/bash /usr/local/bin/vm_maintenance.sh
                 └─28535 nebius compute instance get --id computeinstance-*** --format json
    
    Apr 25 10:19:19 computeinstance-*** systemd[1]: Started VM Maintenance Event Handler.