How to Import an Google Compute Health Check into Terraform

Import Google Compute Health Check 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 Health Check 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_health_check.web
  id = "projects/my-project/global/healthChecks/web-hc"
}

Example google_compute_health_check configuration

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

resource "google_compute_health_check" "web" {
  name                = "web-hc"
  check_interval_sec  = 5
  timeout_sec         = 5
  healthy_threshold   = 2
  unhealthy_threshold = 3

  http_health_check {
    port         = 80
    request_path = "/healthz"
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Compute Health Check

• google_compute_health_check is global; a regional internal load balancer may use the separate google_compute_region_health_check resource.
• Exactly one protocol block (http_health_check, https_health_check, tcp_health_check, etc.) is set; match the live check type.
• This is the modern unified health check; the legacy google_compute_http_health_check and google_compute_https_health_check are different resources used only by target pools.
• Thresholds and intervals have defaults the server fills in, so set them explicitly to avoid a post-import diff.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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