Question

A DevOps engineer manually created an EC2 instance directly in the AWS console. It is not tracked by Terraform, but a colleague accidentally added a matching resource block and ran 'terraform apply', which created a SECOND duplicate instance that Terraform now tracks in state. The team wants Terraform to manage the ORIGINAL console-created instance and delete the accidental duplicate. What is the correct sequence of actions?

Accepted Answer

Run 'terraform state rm' on the duplicate's address, manually terminate the duplicate in AWS, then 'terraform import' to associate the resource block with the original instance's ID

Answer

Run 'terraform destroy' to remove the duplicate, then 'terraform import' to bring the original instance under management

Answer

Run 'terraform state mv' to point the resource block at the original instance's real-world ID

Answer

Run 'terraform apply -refresh-only' so Terraform automatically reconciles the state to the original instance