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Working with Terraform State

Terraform state is a fundamental concept in Terraform that tracks the state of your managed infrastructure and configuration. Understanding how to work with Terraform state is essential for effectively managing and scaling your Terraform projects.

What is Terraform State?​

  1. Purpose of State:

    • Terraform uses state to map real-world resources to your configuration and to keep track of metadata.
    • The state is stored in a file named terraform.tfstate.

  2. State File Location:

    • By default, the state file is stored locally. For team environments, it’s recommended to use a remote state.

Managing State​

  1. Inspecting State:

    • Use terraform show to inspect the current state.

  2. Modifying State:

    • Directly editing the state file is discouraged. Use Terraform commands like terraform state rm or terraform state mv for safe modifications.

  3. State Locking:

    • State locking prevents others from acquiring the lock and potentially corrupting the state while an operation that modifies the state is ongoing.

  4. Remote State:

    • Remote state allows team members to share the state.
    • Common backends for remote state include AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage, and Google Cloud Storage.
    • Configure remote state with a backend configuration in your Terraform configuration. Example for S3: 
      terraform {
        backend "s3" {
          bucket = "my-terraform-state-bucket"
          key    = "path/to/my/key"
          region = "us-west-2"
        }
      }

Best Practices​

  • Version Control: Do not check the state file into version control. Instead, use a remote backend.
  • Security: Treat the state file as sensitive data. It can contain sensitive information such as passwords or access keys.
  • Backups: Regularly back up your state file, especially when using local state.