How to Import an Google Compute Regional Address into Terraform

Import Google Compute Regional Address with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Compute Engine resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Compute Regional Address to managed Terraform.

terraback scan all gcp --project my-gcp-project

terraback gcp 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 = google_compute_address.api
  id = "projects/my-project/regions/us-central1/addresses/api-ip"
}

Example google_compute_address configuration

Here is a realistic Google Compute Regional Address block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_compute_address" "api" {
  name         = "api-ip"
  project      = "my-project"
  region       = "us-central1"
  address_type = "EXTERNAL"
  network_tier = "PREMIUM"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Compute Regional Address

• google_compute_address is regional and uses a regions/<region> path; a global anycast IP is the separate google_compute_global_address resource.
• address_type is EXTERNAL by default; an INTERNAL address also needs the subnetwork it is reserved from.
• The actual IP value (address) is server-assigned unless you reserved a specific one, so leave it unset to keep whatever was allocated.
• Changing region, address_type, or purpose forces a new resource, releasing the existing IP.

Doing it manually with terraform import

The native approach is to write the google_compute_address block by hand, then run terraform import google_compute_address.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 Google Cloud resources