---
title: "Pause, restart, or delete a peering connection"
description: "Stop a VPC peering connection for a while, bring it back up, or remove it for good, from the VPC's Peering Connections tab in MyAccount."
content_type: "how-to"
product: "vpc"
platform: "MyAccount"
url: "/myaccount/vpc/how-to/pause-restart-or-delete-a-peering-connection/"
topic: ["peering"]
relationships: {"requires":["/myaccount/vpc/how-to/peer-two-vpcs/"]}
---

# Pause, restart, or delete a peering connection

A peering connection can be paused and restarted as often as you like, and deleted when you no
longer need it. Pause it to cut the link between two networks for a while, such as during
maintenance, and keep its setup for later. Delete it to remove the link for good, for example before
you delete one of the VPCs.

## Before you begin

- A VPC with a peering connection. Select it in **Network > VPC** and open its **Peering
  Connections** tab, which lists each connection with its **Status** and **Peer VPC**. The actions
  below are in each connection's actions menu.

## Pause a connection

Choose **Pause**. The tunnel stops, and the connection shows **In-active**. Resources in the two
VPCs can no longer reach each other through it, and their routes stay in place for when you restart.
**Pause** is greyed out while the connection is creating, has failed, or is already paused.

## Restart a connection

Choose **Restart** on a paused connection, or on one that has gone down. A message confirms the
restart, and the connection shows **Active** again once the tunnel is back up. If a restart does not
bring it back, see [Troubleshooting VPC](/myaccount/vpc/troubleshooting/vpc/).

## Delete a connection

Deleting a connection disconnects every resource that uses it, and it cannot be undone: to join the
two VPCs again, you create a new connection and add the routes again.

1. Choose **Delete Connection**.
2. In **Delete Peering Connection**, tick **I understand and I want to delete my peering
   connection.** and click **Delete**.

A message confirms the delete, and the connection leaves the **Peering Connections** tab of both
VPCs. E2E also takes the security group it added for the connection off both gateways, and sends you
an email.

The routes you added on your resources stay until they restart. Remove them if you like, with the
same command as before and `del` in place of `add`, for example
`ip route del 10.100.74.0/23 via 10.20.0.1`. To remove one of the VPCs next, see
[Delete a VPC](/myaccount/vpc/how-to/delete-a-vpc/).