How to Import an Azure Public IP into Terraform

Import Azure Public IP with Terraback (recommended)

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

terraback scan all azure --subscription-id YOUR_ID

terraback azure 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 = azurerm_public_ip.lb
  id = "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/prod-rg/providers/Microsoft.Network/publicIPAddresses/lb-pip"
}

Example azurerm_public_ip configuration

Here is a realistic Azure Public IP block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "azurerm_public_ip" "lb" {
  name                = "lb-pip"
  resource_group_name = "prod-rg"
  location            = "eastus"
  allocation_method   = "Static"
  sku                 = "Standard"
}

Gotchas when importing a Azure Public IP

• The ARM type is publicIPAddresses (capital IP); the import path is case-sensitive.
• Standard SKU public IPs must use Static allocation; only Basic SKU supports Dynamic.
• sku and allocation_method changes can force recreation, which releases and reassigns the IP address.
• If the IP is attached to an LB or NIC, those associations live on the consuming resource, not the public IP.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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