How to Import an Azure Storage Account into Terraform

Import Azure Storage Account with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Azure Storage resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Azure Storage Account 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_storage_account.assets
  id = "/subscriptions/00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000/resourceGroups/prod-rg/providers/Microsoft.Storage/storageAccounts/prodassets"
}

Example azurerm_storage_account configuration

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

resource "azurerm_storage_account" "assets" {
  name                     = "prodassets"
  resource_group_name      = "prod-rg"
  location                 = "eastus"
  account_tier             = "Standard"
  account_replication_type = "LRS"
}

Gotchas when importing a Azure Storage Account

• Account names are globally unique and must be 3-24 lowercase alphanumeric characters.
• Containers, blobs, queues, and file shares are separate resources such as azurerm_storage_container.
• Provider property names differ from the API: for example enable_https_traffic_only became https_traffic_only_enabled.
• Access keys are sensitive; reference them through outputs rather than hardcoding.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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