- NAME
-
- gcloud alpha compute instances start - start a stopped virtual machine instance
- SYNOPSIS
-
-
gcloud alpha compute instances startINSTANCE_NAMES[INSTANCE_NAMES…] [--async] [--csek-key-file=FILE] [--zone=ZONE] [GCLOUD_WIDE_FLAG …]
-
- DESCRIPTION
-
(ALPHA)gcloud alpha compute instances startis used to start a stopped Compute Engine virtual machine. Only a stopped virtual machine can be started. - EXAMPLES
- To start a stopped instance named 'example-instance' in zone
us-central1-agcloud alpha compute instances start example-instance --zone = us-central1-a - POSITIONAL ARGUMENTS
-
-
INSTANCE_NAMES[INSTANCE_NAMES…] - Names of the instances to operate on. For details on valid instance names, refer to the criteria documented under the field 'name' at: https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/reference/rest/v1/instances
-
- FLAGS
-
-
--async - Return immediately, without waiting for the operation in progress to complete.
-
--csek-key-file=FILE - Path to a Customer-Supplied Encryption Key (CSEK) key file that maps Compute
Engine resources to user managed keys to be used when creating, mounting, or
taking snapshots of disks.
If you pass
-as value of the flag, the CSEK is read from stdin. See https://cloud.google.com/compute/docs/disks/customer-supplied-encryption for more details. -
--zone=ZONE - Zone of the instances to operate on. If not specified, you might be prompted to
select a zone (interactive mode only).
gcloudattempts to identify the appropriate zone by searching for resources in your currently active project. If the zone cannot be determined,gcloudprompts you for a selection with all available Google Cloud Platform zones.To avoid prompting when this flag is omitted, the user can set the
compute/zonegcloud config set compute/zone ZONEA list of zones can be fetched by running:
gcloud compute zones listTo unset the property, run:
gcloud config unset compute/zoneAlternatively, the zone can be stored in the environment variable
CLOUDSDK_COMPUTE_ZONE
-
- GCLOUD WIDE FLAGS
- These flags are available to all commands:
--access-token-file,--account,--billing-project,--configuration,--flags-file,--flatten,--format,--help,--impersonate-service-account,--log-http,--project,--quiet,--trace-token,--user-output-enabled,--verbosity.Run
$ gcloud helpfor details. - NOTES
- This command is currently in alpha and might change without notice. If this
command fails with API permission errors despite specifying the correct project,
you might be trying to access an API with an invitation-only early access
allowlist. These variants are also available:
gcloud compute instances startgcloud beta compute instances startgcloud preview compute instances start
gcloud alpha compute instances start
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Last updated 2026-05-27 UTC.
