How to Import an Google VPC Network into Terraform

Import Google VPC Network with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Google Compute Engine resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google VPC Network 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_network.vpc
  id = "projects/my-project/global/networks/prod-vpc"
}

Example google_compute_network configuration

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

resource "google_compute_network" "vpc" {
  name                    = "prod-vpc"
  auto_create_subnetworks = false
  routing_mode            = "REGIONAL"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google VPC Network

• Set auto_create_subnetworks to match reality; importing an auto-mode network as custom-mode (or vice versa) forces recreation.
• Subnetworks, firewall rules, and routes are separate resources and are not imported with the network.
• The default network in a new project is auto-mode; importing it as custom-mode plans a destroy.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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