github.com/ns1/terraform@v0.7.10-0.20161109153551-8949419bef40/website/source/docs/import/index.html.md (about)

     1  ---
     2  layout: "docs"
     3  page_title: "Import"
     4  sidebar_current: "docs-import"
     5  description: |-
     6    Terraform is able to import existing infrastructure. This allows you take
     7    resources you've created by some other means and bring it under Terraform
     8    management.
     9  ---
    10  
    11  # Import
    12  
    13  Terraform is able to import existing infrastructure. This allows you take
    14  resources you've created by some other means and bring it under Terraform
    15  management.
    16  
    17  This is a great way to slowly transition infrastructure to Terraform, or
    18  to be able to be confident that you can use Terraform in the future if it
    19  potentially doesn't support every feature you need today.
    20  
    21  ## Currently State Only
    22  
    23  The current implementation of Terraform import can only import resources
    24  into the [state](/docs/state). It does not generate configuration. A future
    25  version of Terraform will also generate configuration.
    26  
    27  Because of this, the behavior of importing resources into Terraform right now
    28  is that after an import, if you run a `terraform plan`, Terraform views it
    29  as an orphan (a resource with no configuration) and marks it for destruction.
    30  After importing a resource you have to manually write configuration to match
    31  the resource.
    32  
    33  While this may seem tedious, it still gives Terraform users an avenue for
    34  importing existing resources. A future version of Terraform will fully generate
    35  configuration significantly simplifying this process.