How to Import an AWS Route 53 Record into Terraform

Import AWS Route 53 Record with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Amazon Route 53 resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live AWS Route 53 Record 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_route53_record.app
  id = "Z1D633PJN98FT9_app.example.com_A"
}

Example aws_route53_record configuration

Here is a realistic AWS Route 53 Record block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "aws_route53_record" "app" {
  zone_id = "Z1D633PJN98FT9"
  name    = "app.example.com"
  type    = "A"
  ttl     = 300
  records = ["203.0.113.10"]
}

Gotchas when importing a AWS Route 53 Record

• The import ID is ZONEID_NAME_TYPE joined by underscores; weighted, latency, geolocation, and failover records add a fourth underscore-separated set identifier.
• Alias records have no ttl or records; they use an alias block instead, so do not mix alias and records.
• TXT record values must be wrapped in escaped double quotes inside the records list.
• The hosted zone (aws_route53_zone) is a separate resource; importing a record does not import its zone.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the aws_route53_record block by hand, then run terraform import aws_route53_record.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