How to Import an Google Cloud DNS Managed Zone into Terraform

Import Google Cloud DNS Managed Zone with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Cloud DNS resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Cloud DNS Managed Zone 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_dns_managed_zone.example
  id = "projects/my-project/managedZones/example-zone"
}

Example google_dns_managed_zone configuration

Here is a realistic Google Cloud DNS Managed Zone block. Terraback generates a fuller version from your actual resource attributes; this is a minimal, valid starting point.

resource "google_dns_managed_zone" "example" {
  name        = "example-zone"
  dns_name    = "example.com."
  description = "Public zone for example.com"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud DNS Managed Zone

• The import ID uses the zone resource name (example-zone), not the dns_name (example.com.).
• dns_name must end with a trailing dot and is immutable once the zone is created.
• Record sets are separate google_dns_record_set resources; importing the zone does not import the records inside it.
• Private zones set visibility = private and a private_visibility_config; public is the default and is usually omitted.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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