3 min read | by Jordi Prats
Terraform keeps a list of managed objects on it's state, if for some reason we no longer want terraform to manage them we can remove them from the code base. Doing so we will see how terraform will try to delete them:
$ terraform plan (...) Plan: 0 to add, 0 to change, 10 to destroy. (...) To be able to terraform to forget about these resources we can remove them from them terraform state using terraform state rm:
$ terraform state rm aws_iam_instance_profile.instance_profile Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_instance_profile.instance_profile Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... We can also use the terraform plan output for getting the list of objects to delete:
$ terraform plan -no-color | grep "will be destroyed" | awk '{ print $2 }' aws_iam_policy.policy1 aws_iam_policy.policy2 aws_iam_policy.policy3 aws_iam_role.demo_role aws_iam_role_policy.inline_policy1 aws_iam_role_policy.inline_policy2 aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.policy1 aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.policy2 aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.policy3 To be able to tell terraform to remove them from the state using a bash for loop:
$ for i in $(terraform plan -no-color | grep "will be destroyed" | awk '{ print $2 }'); do terraform state rm $i; done Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_policy.policy1 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_policy.policy2 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_policy.policy3 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_role.demo_role Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_role_policy.inline_policy1 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_role_policy.inline_policy2 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.policy1 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.policy2 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Acquiring state lock. This may take a few moments... Removed aws_iam_role_policy_attachment.policy3 Successfully removed 1 resource instance(s). Releasing state lock. This may take a few moments... Posted on 30/04/2021