HashiCorp Certified: Terraform Associate free question 9 / 10 · Domain 7: Maintain infrastructure with Terraform
A team hopes one terraform import run can bring in an existing AWS VPC together with every object inside it. What does the Import existing resources page say about this?
- The command imports one resource at a time, not a whole collection such as a VPC.
- The command imports the VPC and writes resource blocks for all of its contents.
- The command imports the VPC and its contents once -parallelism is set above 10.
- The command imports the VPC and its contents if the address is a module address.
Show the answer and explanation
Answer: A
Why this is correct
The Import existing resources page says to use the terraform import command to import existing infrastructure to Terraform state. It then sets the limit that answers the question: the terraform import command can only import one resource at a time, and it cannot simultaneously import an entire collection of resources, such as an AWS VPC. The steps it gives are short. First, add the resource you want to manage with Terraform to your Terraform configuration: write a resource block and give it a name, which is a unique ID you can use to reference the resource elsewhere. You do not have to complete the body of the block; you can finish defining arguments after the instance is imported. Second, run the terraform import command, for example terraform import aws_instance.example i-abcd1234. The command locates the EC2 instance with that ID, attaches its existing settings to the name aws_instance.example, and saves the mapping in the Terraform state. You can then run terraform plan to see how the configuration compares to the imported resource.
Why the other options are wrong
"The command imports the VPC and its contents if the address is a module address." … Importing into a module address is allowed, but the page says the command can only import one resource at a time. A module path only says where the one resource goes.
"The command imports the VPC and its contents once -parallelism is set above 10." … -parallelism limits the number of concurrent operations as Terraform walks the graph and defaults to 10. It does not change the rule that the command imports one resource at a time.
"The command imports the VPC and writes resource blocks for all of its contents." … The page's first step is to add the resource you want to manage to your configuration yourself, and it says you can finish defining the arguments of that block after the instance is imported.
One resource per import
terraform import brings in one resource at a time; it cannot import a whole collection such as a VPC in one run.