How to Import an AWS EBS Snapshot into Terraform

Import AWS EBS Snapshot with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Amazon EC2 resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live AWS EBS Snapshot 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_ebs_snapshot.data
  id = "snap-0a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8"
}

Example aws_ebs_snapshot configuration

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

resource "aws_ebs_snapshot" "data" {
  volume_id   = "vol-0a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8"
  description = "Nightly data volume snapshot"

  tags = {
    Name = "data-nightly"
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS EBS Snapshot

• Import by the snap- ID; the source volume_id is required in config and must match the volume the snapshot was taken from.
• Snapshots created automatically by a DLM lifecycle policy or AWS Backup should be managed through that policy, not imported one by one.
• Snapshots are largely immutable, so the generated config commonly sets prevent_destroy to avoid accidental data loss.
• Cross-account or cross-region copies (aws_ebs_snapshot_copy) are a separate resource type.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the aws_ebs_snapshot block by hand, then run terraform import aws_ebs_snapshot.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