How to Import an Google Cloud DNS Record Set into Terraform

Import Google Cloud DNS Record Set 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 Record Set 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_record_set.www
  id = "projects/my-project/managedZones/example-zone/rrsets/www.example.com./A"
}

Example google_dns_record_set configuration

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

resource "google_dns_record_set" "www" {
  managed_zone = "example-zone"
  name         = "www.example.com."
  type         = "A"
  ttl          = 300
  rrdatas      = ["192.0.2.10"]
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud DNS Record Set

• The import ID encodes both the fully qualified record name (with trailing dot) and the record type, since a name can have several record sets.
• name must be fully qualified and end with a dot, matching the parent zone dns_name.
• A record set holds all values of one type for one name in rrdatas; manage every value in that single resource, not one per IP.
• Do not import the zone-level NS and SOA records that Cloud DNS creates automatically unless you intend to manage them.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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