Terraform Advanced — Recovering Deleted State

What to do when your state file is lost or corrupted.

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Recovery from S3 Versioning

# List state file versions
aws s3api list-object-versions \
  --bucket my-tf-state \
  --prefix prod/terraform.tfstate

# Restore a previous version
aws s3api get-object \
  --bucket my-tf-state \
  --key prod/terraform.tfstate \
  --version-id "abc123" \
  restored.tfstate

# Push it back
terraform state push restored.tfstate

💡 Production Tip: Always enable versioning on your state bucket. It’s your safety net.

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Re-Import Everything

When state is completely gone:

# 1. List existing resources (AWS CLI, console, etc.)
aws ec2 describe-instances --filters "Name=tag:ManagedBy,Values=terraform"

# 2. Import each resource
terraform import aws_instance.app i-0abc123def456
terraform import aws_vpc.main vpc-0abc123
terraform import aws_subnet.private[0] subnet-0abc123

# 3. Verify
terraform plan
# Should show no changes if imports match code

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Import Block (Terraform 1.5+)

import {
  to = aws_instance.app
  id = "i-0abc123def456"
}

import {
  to = aws_vpc.main
  id = "vpc-0abc123"
}

terraform plan -generate-config-out=generated.tf
terraform apply

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Prevention Checklist

✅ S3 versioning enabled on state bucket
✅ DynamoDB table for locking
✅ Regular state backups (terraform state pull > backup.tfstate)
✅ State bucket replication to another region
✅ Deletion protection on state bucket

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What’s Next?

Practice debugging and state surgery.

← state mv & Refactoring Practice Exercises →