How to Import an Google Memorystore for Memcached into Terraform

Import Google Memorystore for Memcached with Terraback (recommended)

Terraback reverse-engineers your live infrastructure: it reads the Memorystore resource with read-only credentials, generates the HCL, and produces the exact import block. Two commands take you from a live Google Memorystore for Memcached 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_memcache_instance.sessions
  id = "projects/my-project/locations/us-central1/instances/sessions"
}

Example google_memcache_instance configuration

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

resource "google_memcache_instance" "sessions" {
  name       = "sessions"
  region     = "us-central1"
  node_count = 2

  node_config {
    cpu_count      = 1
    memory_size_mb = 1024
  }
}

Gotchas when importing a Google Memorystore for Memcached

• In the import path the region is a locations/<region> segment, but the HCL attribute is named region.
• node_config (cpu_count and memory_size_mb) is required and largely immutable; changing it can force recreation.
• authorized_network is the VPC the instance is reachable from; changing it forces a new instance.
• memcache_version and parameters have server defaults, so set them explicitly to avoid a post-import diff.

Doing it manually with terraform import

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