How to use Azure Runbooks to restart an Azure Web App on a schedule

Question

We have an Azure Web App that we want to setup an automatic restart on a schedule. If I wanted to use Runbooks for this, how would I add one or multiple apps to automatically restart on different schedules?

Answer 1

There are a number of different ways to do this, and some will depend on the Azure-Runbook module versions you have.

1. You need to setup a user as 'RunAsConnection' user
2. To get a connection, you can use the cmdlet: Get-AutomationConnection
3. Then to add an authenticated account, you use: Add-AzureRmAccount
4. If you have multiple subscriptions, you will need to select the subscription to use: Select-AzureRmSubscription
5. Finally, use Restart-AzureRmWebApp to restart the web app.

If you set a $result= Restart-AzureRmWebApp, if the $result is null, then it didn't work, otherwise you will see the status of the running webapp. Eg. $result.State = "Running" if it worked successfully.

To do this on a schedule: go to your Runbook > Schedules > Add Schedule.

Add the input parameters, and select/create a recurring schedule. Click Ok and you're done!

*** If you use a parameter for your webAppName, then you can reuse the runbook, and just add different schedules with different input params

Sample Code.

try
{
    $servicePrincipalConnection= Get-AutomationConnection -Name "AzureRunAsConnection"

    # Logging in to Azure
    $account = Add-AzureRmAccount `
        -ServicePrincipal `
        -TenantId $servicePrincipalConnection.TenantId `
        -ApplicationId $servicePrincipalConnection.ApplicationId `
        -CertificateThumbprint $servicePrincipalConnection.CertificateThumbprint

    Select-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionName "Azure subscription name"

    $result = Restart-AzureRmWebApp `
                -ResourceGroupName "Resource Name"
                -Name "Name of webapp you want to restart"

    if($result)
    {
        $state = $result.State
        Write-Output ("Web app restarted and is now $state")  #State should be Running at this point
    }
   else
   {
        Write-Output ("Web app did NOT restart")
   }
}
catch
{
    Write-Output ("Web app did NOT restart")
    throw $_.Exception
}

Answer 2

Because Az PowerShell modules now have all the capabilities of AzureRM PowerShell modules and more, we'll retire AzureRM PowerShell modules on 29 February 2024

Here is an updated example with Az PowerShell modules.

filter timestamp {"[$(Get-Date -Format G)]: $_"}       
Write-Output "Script started." | timestamp 

$resourceGroupName = "your group"
$appServiceName = "your app service"
$subscriptionName = "your subscription"
try
{
    $conn = Get-AutomationConnection -Name "AzureRunAsConnection" 
    Connect-AzAccount -ServicePrincipal -Tenant $conn.TenantID -ApplicationId $conn.ApplicationID -CertificateThumbprint $conn.CertificateThumbprint | out-null

    # Select-AzureRmSubscription -SubscriptionName subscriptionName

    $result = Restart-AzWebApp -ResourceGroupName $resourceGroupName -Name $appServiceName

    if($result)
    {
        $state = $result.State
        Write-Output ("Web app restarted and is now $state")  #State should be Running at this point
    }
   else
   {
        Write-Output ("Web app did NOT restart")
   }
}
catch
{
    Write-Output ("Web app did NOT restart")
    throw $_.Exception
}