Terraform must store state about your managed infrastructure and configuration. This state is used by Terraform to map real world resources to your configuration, keep track of metadata, and to improve performance for large infrastructures.
This state is stored by default in a local file named “terraform.tfstate”
State locking
- prevents multiple users or processes from making concurrent changes to the same state file
Details:
- When you run commands like
terraform planorterraform apply, Terraform locks the state. - Once the operation finishes, it releases the lock.
- If another operation tries to run while the state is locked, it will wait (or error out, depending on the backend).
You can manually disable locking (not recommended in production) with terraform apply -lock=false
Manually unlock the state for the defined configuration.
terraform force-unlock [options] LOCK_ID
Remove state
- to forget a resource without deleting it
terraform state rm [address]
Use Case
-
- It’s now managed manually or by another tools
- You’re splitting monolith into multiple Terraform workspaces/stacks
- If someone deletes a resource manually (e.g., EC2) but it’s still in the state, Terraform might behave unpredictably.
- If a resource is wrongly imported or needs re-import,
- Fix the drift or errors.
Other command
State list List out all the address of resource in state
terraform state list
State show show all the config of resource in state
terraform state show
State pull
- Purpose: Fetches the current state file from the backend and prints it to
stdout. - Use case: For debugging, inspection, or manual state manipulation.
terraform state pull
State push
- Purpose: Uploads a local
.tfstatefile to the backend, overwriting the current state. - Use case: After manual editing or recovery of a state file.
terraform state push