How to Import an Google Cloud KMS Key Ring into Terraform

Import Google Cloud KMS Key Ring with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Cloud KMS resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Cloud KMS Key Ring 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_kms_key_ring.app
  id = "projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/keyRings/app-ring"
}

Example google_kms_key_ring configuration

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

resource "google_kms_key_ring" "app" {
  name     = "app-ring"
  location = "us-central1"
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Cloud KMS Key Ring

• Key rings cannot be deleted from Google Cloud; a Terraform destroy only removes the resource from state, so the ring lives on.
• location is immutable and can be a region, a dual-region, or global; use the exact value from the resource name.
• Crypto keys inside the ring are separate google_kms_crypto_key resources and are not imported with the ring.
• Because rings are permanent, reusing a name after a prior project is common; confirm you are importing the intended ring.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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