How to Import an AWS CloudFront Distribution into Terraform

Import AWS CloudFront Distribution with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Amazon CloudFront resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live AWS CloudFront Distribution to managed Terraform.

terraback scan all aws --region us-east-1

terraback aws import --method bulk

The Terraform import block

Terraback emits a Terraform 1.5+ import block like the one below. Because the block lives in your configuration, the import is reviewable in a pull request and repeatable across environments.

import {
  to = aws_cloudfront_distribution.cdn
  id = "E2QWRUHAPOMQZL"
}

Example aws_cloudfront_distribution configuration

Here is a realistic AWS CloudFront Distribution block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "aws_cloudfront_distribution" "cdn" {
  enabled             = true
  default_root_object = "index.html"

  origin {
    domain_name = "my-app-assets.s3.amazonaws.com"
    origin_id   = "s3-assets"
  }

  default_cache_behavior {
    target_origin_id       = "s3-assets"
    viewer_protocol_policy = "redirect-to-https"
    allowed_methods        = ["GET", "HEAD"]
    cached_methods         = ["GET", "HEAD"]
  }

  restrictions {
    geo_restriction {
      restriction_type = "none"
    }
  }

  viewer_certificate {
    cloudfront_default_certificate = true
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS CloudFront Distribution

• CloudFront has many required nested blocks; expect to fill in origin, default_cache_behavior, restrictions, and viewer_certificate even for a minimal config.
• The distribution is global, so import it with the default us-east-1 provider for ACM certificate references.
• Changes can take many minutes to propagate; a plan may look stable while the distribution is still deploying.
• etag and last_modified_time are computed and change on every update.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the aws_cloudfront_distribution block by hand, then run terraform import aws_cloudfront_distribution.example <import-id> for every resource, one at a time. That works for a handful of resources, but it does not scale: you author all the HCL yourself and repeat the command for each item. Terraback generates the HCL and the import blocks for your whole account in one pass.

Import other AWS resources