How to Import an AWS EC2 Key Pair into Terraform

Import AWS EC2 Key Pair 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 EC2 Key Pair 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_key_pair.deployer
  id = "deployer-key"
}

Example aws_key_pair configuration

Here is a realistic AWS EC2 Key Pair block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "aws_key_pair" "deployer" {
  key_name   = "deployer-key"
  public_key = "ssh-ed25519 AAAAC3NzaC1lZDI1NTE5AAAA... deployer@example.com"
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS EC2 Key Pair

• Import by the key name, not the key pair ID or fingerprint.
• AWS only stores the public key; the public_key argument is required in config, and the private key is never recoverable from AWS.
• If you only need to reference an existing key without managing it, use the aws_key_pair data source instead of importing.
• public_key is immutable, so any difference between config and the stored key forces replacement.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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