Restart Cluster Node

Summary

This script safely restarts a single Hyper-V cluster node from within CW Automate, without causing downtime for the virtual machines (VMs) running on it.

When triggered, the script performs the following steps on the target node:

1. Downloads and verifies the restart script from our secure content repository. Every download is checked against our code-signing certificate before it runs, so only trusted, unmodified code is executed on your systems.

2. Prepares the VMs for reboot. Clustered (highly available) VMs are live-migrated to another healthy node in the cluster, so they stay online throughout the reboot. Non-clustered VMs, which cannot be migrated, are safely suspended (their state is saved to disk).

3. Restarts the node. Once every VM has been accounted for, the node reboots.

4. Restores everything automatically. After the node comes back online and rejoins the cluster, a built-in post-reboot task resumes the suspended VMs and migrates the clustered VMs back to this node. The task then removes itself, leaving no leftover artifacts.

Built-in safety: If anything goes wrong before the reboot (for example, a VM fails to migrate or suspend), the script automatically reverses all changes and cancels the reboot. The node is never left in a half-migrated state.

Monitoring: CW Automate monitors the post-reboot restore process and reports one of three statuses:

• Success -- All VMs have been restored to the node.
• Continue -- The restore is still in progress; no action is needed.
• Failure -- The restore did not complete; manual investigation is required. Details are included in the script output.

Note: This script restarts one node at a time. To restart multiple nodes, run it on each node separately, allowing the first node to fully complete its restore before starting the next.

Prerequisite: A one-time environment setup (Kerberos delegation in Active Directory and a per-host Hyper-V setting) must be completed before using this script for the first time. See the Restart-ClusterNode documentation for full setup instructions.

Dependencies

• Restart-ClusterNode

Sample Run

Global Variables

Name	Value	Accepted Values	Description
Debug	False	False, True	When True, enables informational logging; when False (default), informational logs are suppressed to avoid adding entries to the h_scripts table. Set to True to assist with troubleshooting.
ScriptEngineEnableLogger	False	False, True	When True, enables final (success/failure) logging; when False (default), these logs are suppressed to avoid adding entries to the h_scripts table. Set to True to assist with troubleshooting.
TimeoutMinutes	30	Any positive integer	The maximum number of minutes CW Automate will wait for the post-reboot restore process to complete before reporting a failure. If the VMs have not been fully restored within this window, the monitor flags the node for manual investigation. Increase this value for hosts with a large number of VMs or slower storage, where the resume and migration-back process may take longer.

Output

• Script Logs

Changelog

2026-07-28

• Initial version of the document.