AWS Tools for Windows PowerShell
Command Reference

Synopsis

Calls the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) StartInstances API operation.

Syntax

Start-EC2Instance
-InstanceId <Object[]>
-AdditionalInfo <String>
-Select <String>
-PassThru <SwitchParameter>
-Force <SwitchParameter>
-ClientConfig <AmazonEC2Config>

Description

Starts an Amazon EBS-backed instance that you've previously stopped. Instances that use Amazon EBS volumes as their root devices can be quickly stopped and started. When an instance is stopped, the compute resources are released and you are not billed for instance usage. However, your root partition Amazon EBS volume remains and continues to persist your data, and you are charged for Amazon EBS volume usage. You can restart your instance at any time. Every time you start your instance, Amazon EC2 charges a one-minute minimum for instance usage, and thereafter charges per second for instance usage. Before stopping an instance, make sure it is in a state from which it can be restarted. Stopping an instance does not preserve data stored in RAM. Performing this operation on an instance that uses an instance store as its root device returns an error. If you attempt to start a T3 instance with host tenancy and the unlimited CPU credit option, the request fails. The unlimited CPU credit option is not supported on Dedicated Hosts. Before you start the instance, either change its CPU credit option to standard, or change its tenancy to default or dedicated. For more information, see Stop and start Amazon EC2 instances in the Amazon EC2 User Guide.

Parameters

-AdditionalInfo <String>
Reserved.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-ClientConfig <AmazonEC2Config>
Amazon.PowerShell.Cmdlets.EC2.AmazonEC2ClientCmdlet.ClientConfig
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Force <SwitchParameter>
This parameter overrides confirmation prompts to force the cmdlet to continue its operation. This parameter should always be used with caution.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-InstanceId <Object[]>
The IDs of the instances.
Required?True
Position?1
Accept pipeline input?True (ByValue, ByPropertyName)
AliasesInstance, InstanceIds
-PassThru <SwitchParameter>
Changes the cmdlet behavior to return the value passed to the InstanceId parameter. The -PassThru parameter is deprecated, use -Select '^InstanceId' instead. This parameter will be removed in a future version.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-Select <String>
Use the -Select parameter to control the cmdlet output. The default value is 'StartingInstances'. Specifying -Select '*' will result in the cmdlet returning the whole service response (Amazon.EC2.Model.StartInstancesResponse). Specifying the name of a property of type Amazon.EC2.Model.StartInstancesResponse will result in that property being returned. Specifying -Select '^ParameterName' will result in the cmdlet returning the selected cmdlet parameter value.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)

Common Credential and Region Parameters

-AccessKey <String>
The AWS access key for the user account. This can be a temporary access key if the corresponding session token is supplied to the -SessionToken parameter.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesAK
-Credential <AWSCredentials>
An AWSCredentials object instance containing access and secret key information, and optionally a token for session-based credentials.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByValue, ByPropertyName)
-EndpointUrl <String>
The endpoint to make the call against.Note: This parameter is primarily for internal AWS use and is not required/should not be specified for normal usage. The cmdlets normally determine which endpoint to call based on the region specified to the -Region parameter or set as default in the shell (via Set-DefaultAWSRegion). Only specify this parameter if you must direct the call to a specific custom endpoint.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
-NetworkCredential <PSCredential>
Used with SAML-based authentication when ProfileName references a SAML role profile. Contains the network credentials to be supplied during authentication with the configured identity provider's endpoint. This parameter is not required if the user's default network identity can or should be used during authentication.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByValue, ByPropertyName)
-ProfileLocation <String>
Used to specify the name and location of the ini-format credential file (shared with the AWS CLI and other AWS SDKs)If this optional parameter is omitted this cmdlet will search the encrypted credential file used by the AWS SDK for .NET and AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio first. If the profile is not found then the cmdlet will search in the ini-format credential file at the default location: (user's home directory)\.aws\credentials.If this parameter is specified then this cmdlet will only search the ini-format credential file at the location given.As the current folder can vary in a shell or during script execution it is advised that you use specify a fully qualified path instead of a relative path.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesAWSProfilesLocation, ProfilesLocation
-ProfileName <String>
The user-defined name of an AWS credentials or SAML-based role profile containing credential information. The profile is expected to be found in the secure credential file shared with the AWS SDK for .NET and AWS Toolkit for Visual Studio. You can also specify the name of a profile stored in the .ini-format credential file used with the AWS CLI and other AWS SDKs.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesStoredCredentials, AWSProfileName
-Region <Object>
The system name of an AWS region or an AWSRegion instance. This governs the endpoint that will be used when calling service operations. Note that the AWS resources referenced in a call are usually region-specific.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesRegionToCall
-SecretKey <String>
The AWS secret key for the user account. This can be a temporary secret key if the corresponding session token is supplied to the -SessionToken parameter.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesSK, SecretAccessKey
-SessionToken <String>
The session token if the access and secret keys are temporary session-based credentials.
Required?False
Position?Named
Accept pipeline input?True (ByPropertyName)
AliasesST

Outputs

Amazon.EC2.Model.InstanceStateChange or Amazon.EC2.Model.StartInstancesResponse
This cmdlet returns a collection of Amazon.EC2.Model.InstanceStateChange objects. The service call response (type Amazon.EC2.Model.StartInstancesResponse) can be returned by specifying '-Select *'.

Examples

Example 1

Start-EC2Instance -InstanceId i-12345678

CurrentState                      InstanceId    PreviousState
------------                      ----------    -------------
Amazon.EC2.Model.InstanceState    i-12345678    Amazon.EC2.Model.InstanceState
This example starts the specified instance.

Example 2

@("i-12345678", "i-76543210") | Start-EC2Instance
This example starts the specified instances.

Example 3

(Get-EC2Instance -Filter @{ Name="instance-state-name"; Values="stopped"}).Instances | Start-EC2Instance
This example starts the set of instances that are currently stopped. The Instance objects returned by Get-EC2Instance are piped to Start-EC2Instance. The syntax used by this example requires PowerShell version 3 or higher.

Example 4

$filter = New-Object Amazon.EC2.Model.Filter
$filter.Name = "instance-state-name"
$filter.Values = "stopped"

(Get-EC2Instance -Filter $filter).Instances | Start-EC2Instance
With PowerShell version 2, you must use New-Object to create the filter for the Filter parameter.
User Guide
Service API Reference
Microsoft Windows Guide
VPC User Guide
AWS Tools for PowerShell User Guide

Supported Version

AWS Tools for PowerShell: 2.x.y.z