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Creating a Windows Server VM with a connection to Cloud Backup

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Updated at April 22, 2025

You can back up Compute Cloud VMs with supported Windows-based operating systems.

For the Cloud Backup agent to work correctly, the VM must meet the minimum requirements.

Getting started

  1. Create a service account with the backup.editor role.
  2. Set up network access for your VM.

Creating a VM

  1. In the management console, select the folder where you want to create a VM.

  2. In the list of services, select Compute Cloud.

  3. In the left-hand panel, select Virtual machines and click Create virtual machine.

  4. Under Boot disk image, select an operating system supported in Cloud Backup.

  5. Under Location, select an availability zone for your VM.

  6. Under Network settings:

    1. Choose a subnet in the selected availability zone.
    2. In the Public IP address field, select Auto.
    3. Select a security group configured to work with Cloud Backup.

  7. Under General information, specify the VM name and description. The name should match the following format:

    • It must be from 2 to 63 characters long.
    • It may contain lowercase Latin letters, numbers, and hyphens.
    • It must start with a letter and cannot end with a hyphen.

    Note

    The VM name is used to generate an internal FQDN, which is set only once, when you create the VM. If the internal FQDN is important to you, make sure to choose an appropriate name for your VM.

  8. Under Additional:

    1. Select the service account with the backup.editor role.
    2. Enable Cloud Backup.
    3. Optionally, select a backup policy or click Create to create a new one.

  9. Specify the other VM parameters as needed.

  10. Click Create VM.

  1. Select a folder:

    yc resource-manager folder list

    Result:

    +----------------------+--------------------+------------------+--------+
|          ID          |        NAME        |      LABELS      | STATUS |
+----------------------+--------------------+------------------+--------+
| wasdcjs6be29******** | my-folder          |                  | ACTIVE |
| qwertys6be29******** | default            |                  | ACTIVE |
+----------------------+--------------------+------------------+--------+

  2. Select a subnet:

    yc vpc subnet list --folder-id <folder_ID>

    Result:

    +----------------------+---------------------------+----------------------+----------------+-------------------+-----------------+
|          ID          |           NAME            |      NETWORK ID      | ROUTE TABLE ID |       ZONE        |      RANGE      |
+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------------+----------------+-------------------+-----------------+
| b0c6n43f9lgh******** | default-ru-central1-d     | enpe3m3fa00u******** |                | ru-central1-d     | [10.***.0.0/24] |
| e2l2da8a20b3******** | default-ru-central1-b     | enpe3m3fa00u******** |                | ru-central1-b     | [10.***.0.0/24] |
| e9bnlm18l70a******** | default-ru-central1-a     | enpe3m3fa00u******** |                | ru-central1-a     | [10.***.0.0/24] |
+----------------------+---------------------------+----------------------+----------------+-------------------+-----------------+

  3. Create the init.ps1 file with a script for installing the Cloud Backup agent on your VM:

    #ps1_sysnative
echo 'Starting to execute backup agent installation'
Invoke-WebRequest https://storage.yandexcloud.net/backup-distributions/agent_installer.ps1 -UseBasicParsing | Invoke-Expression

  4. Create a VM:

    yc compute instance create \
  --folder-id <folder_ID> \
  --name <VM_name> \
  --zone <availability_zone> \
  --network-interface subnet-name=<subnet_name>,nat-ip-version=ipv4,security-group-ids=<security_group_ID> \
  --create-boot-disk image-id=<image_ID>,size=<boot_disk_size> \
  --cores 2 \
  --core-fraction 100 \
  --memory 4 \
  --service-account-name <service_account_name> \
  --metadata-from-file user-data=<path_to_file_with_script>

    Where:

    • --name: VM name.

      Note

      The VM name is used to generate an internal FQDN, which is set only once, when you create the VM. If the internal FQDN is important to you, make sure to choose an appropriate name for your VM.

    • --zone: Availability zone corresponding to the selected subnet.

    • subnet-name: Name of the selected subnet.

    • security-group-ids: ID of the security group configured to work with Cloud Backup.

    • image-id: OS image ID. See the list of supported Windows-based operating systems.

    • size: Boot disk size.

    • --cores: Number of vCPUs in the VM.

    • --core-fraction: Guaranteed vCPU share in %.

    • --memory: VM RAM size.

    • --service-account-name: Name of the service account with the backup.editor role.

    • --user-data: Path to the previously created file with a script for installing the Cloud Backup agent on your VM.

    In this example, we are creating a VM running Windows Server 2022:

    yc compute instance create \
  --name my-vm \
  --zone ru-central1-b \
  --network-interface subnet-name=my-vpc-ru-central1-b,nat-ip-version=ipv4,security-group-ids=abcd3570sbqg******** \
  --create-boot-disk image-id=fd890bh2sapn********,size=60 \
  --cores 2 \
  --core-fraction 100 \
  --memory 4 \
  --service-account-name backup-editor \
  --metadata-from-file user-data=init.ps1

    Result:

    done (46s)
id: abcdho6nspdk********
folder_id: wasdcjs6be29********
created_at: "2023-10-09T14:57:06Z"
name: my-vm
...
placement_policy: {}

    Note

    The commands yc compute instance create | create-with-container | update | add-metadata support substitution of environment variable values into VM metadata. When you execute a Yandex Cloud CLI command, these values, specified in the user-data key in $<variable_name> format, will be substituted into the VM metadata from the environment variables of the environment the command is executed in.

    To change such behavior, i.e. to provide a variable name to the VM metadata in $<variable_name> format rather than take the variable value from the CLI command runtime environment, use the two-dollar syntax, e.g., $$<variable_name>.

    For more information, see Specifics of providing environment variables in metadata via the CLI.

When the VM switches to the Running status, the Cloud Backup agent will start installing on it. This may take from 10 to 30 minutes.

Note

If the Cloud Backup agent fails to install within 30 minutes, contact support to diagnose the issue.

Once you install the Cloud Backup agent, the VM will be added to Cloud Backup in the Virtual machines tab and you will be able to link it to a backup policy. If you selected a backup policy when creating the VM, then the VM is already linked to the policy and no further action is required.

See also

Previous
Creating and connecting a Linux VM
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Connecting an existing Linux VM