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Stopping and starting a PostgreSQL cluster

Written by
Updated at December 5, 2025

You can stop and restart a PostgreSQL cluster as needed. While your cluster is idle, you only pay for the size of your storage and backups based on the pricing policy.

Alert

If a cluster uses local SSD storage (local-ssd), its computing resources are not released when it's stopped. This means that you are charged in full even for a stopped cluster.

Stopping a cluster

You can stop the cluster if you're not going to use the DBMS you launched for a while.

Note

Stopping a cluster is not allowed if it has no backups. In order to stop it, you must create its backup first.

  1. Go to Managed Service for PostgreSQL.
  2. Find your cluster in the list, click , and select Stop.
  3. Click Stop to confirm stopping the cluster.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI installed yet, install and initialize it.

By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

To stop a cluster, run this command:

yc managed-postgresql cluster stop <cluster_name_or_ID>

You can get the cluster ID and name with the list of clusters in the folder.

  1. Get an IAM token for API authentication and put it into an environment variable:

    export IAM_TOKEN="<IAM_token>"

  2. Call the Cluster.Stop method, e.g., via the following cURL request:

    curl \
    --request POST \
    --header "Authorization: Bearer $IAM_TOKEN" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --url 'https://mdb.api.cloud.yandex.net/managed-postgresql/v1/clusters/<cluster_ID>:stop'

    You can request the cluster ID with the list of clusters in the folder.

  3. Check the server response to make sure your request was successful.

  1. Get an IAM token for API authentication and put it into an environment variable:

    export IAM_TOKEN="<IAM_token>"

  2. Clone the cloudapi repository:

    cd ~/ && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/yandex-cloud/cloudapi

    Below, we assume the repository contents are stored in the ~/cloudapi/ directory.

  3. Call the ClusterService.Stop method, e.g., via the following gRPCurl request:

    grpcurl \
    -format json \
    -import-path ~/cloudapi/ \
    -import-path ~/cloudapi/third_party/googleapis/ \
    -proto ~/cloudapi/yandex/cloud/mdb/postgresql/v1/cluster_service.proto \
    -rpc-header "Authorization: Bearer $IAM_TOKEN" \
    -d '{
          "cluster_id": "<cluster_ID>"
        }' \
    mdb.api.cloud.yandex.net:443 \
    yandex.cloud.mdb.postgresql.v1.ClusterService.Stop

    You can request the cluster ID with the list of clusters in the folder.

  4. View the server response to make sure your request was successful.

Starting a cluster

You can restart Stopped clusters.

  1. Go to Managed Service for PostgreSQL.
  2. Find the stopped cluster in the list, click , and select Start.
  3. In the dialog box that opens, click Start to confirm starting the cluster.

If you do not have the Yandex Cloud CLI installed yet, install and initialize it.

By default, the CLI uses the folder specified when creating the profile. To change the default folder, use the yc config set folder-id <folder_ID> command. You can also set a different folder for any specific command using the --folder-name or --folder-id parameter.

To start a stopped cluster, run this command:

yc managed-postgresql cluster start <cluster_name_or_ID>

You can get the cluster ID and name with the list of clusters in the folder.

  1. Get an IAM token for API authentication and put it into an environment variable:

    export IAM_TOKEN="<IAM_token>"

  2. Call the Cluster.Start method, e.g., via the following cURL request:

    curl \
    --request POST \
    --header "Authorization: Bearer $IAM_TOKEN" \
    --header "Content-Type: application/json" \
    --url 'https://mdb.api.cloud.yandex.net/managed-postgresql/v1/clusters/<cluster_ID>:start'

    You can request the cluster ID with the list of clusters in the folder.

  3. Check the server response to make sure your request was successful.

  1. Get an IAM token for API authentication and put it into an environment variable:

    export IAM_TOKEN="<IAM_token>"

  2. Clone the cloudapi repository:

    cd ~/ && git clone --depth=1 https://github.com/yandex-cloud/cloudapi

    Below, we assume the repository contents are stored in the ~/cloudapi/ directory.

  3. Call the ClusterService.Start method, e.g., via the following gRPCurl request:

    grpcurl \
    -format json \
    -import-path ~/cloudapi/ \
    -import-path ~/cloudapi/third_party/googleapis/ \
    -proto ~/cloudapi/yandex/cloud/mdb/postgresql/v1/cluster_service.proto \
    -rpc-header "Authorization: Bearer $IAM_TOKEN" \
    -d '{
          "cluster_id": "<cluster_ID>"
        }' \
    mdb.api.cloud.yandex.net:443 \
    yandex.cloud.mdb.postgresql.v1.ClusterService.Start

    You can request the cluster ID with the list of clusters in the folder.

  4. View the server response to make sure your request was successful.

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