How to Import an Google VPC Network Peering into Terraform

Import Google VPC Network Peering 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 Peering 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_peering.to_shared
  id = "my-project/prod-vpc/peer-to-shared"
}

Example google_compute_network_peering configuration

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

resource "google_compute_network_peering" "to_shared" {
  name         = "peer-to-shared"
  network      = google_compute_network.prod.self_link
  peer_network = "projects/shared-project/global/networks/shared-vpc"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google VPC Network Peering

• Peering is directional in the API: each side is its own resource, so import the matching peering on the peer network too or the connection stays half-configured.
• network and peer_network must be full self_link URLs (projects/{project}/global/networks/{name}); short names will not match on import.
• name and the two networks are immutable; changing any of them forces a destroy and recreate of the peering.
• Routes exchanged by peering are managed by GCP and do not import as Terraform resources.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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